http://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/stories/2009/03/09/daily42.html
Cable giant Comcast Corp. claims it has become the third-largest residential voice phone service provider in the U.S., surpassing Qwest Communications International Inc. but remaining behind phone giants Verizon and AT&T.
Comcast (NASDAQ: CMCSA) counts 6.5 million residential voice customers nationwide, compared to the 5.9 million primary residential accounts Denver-based Qwest (NYSE: Q) reported having in its 14-state local phone service territory at the end of 2008.
Comcast is already the nation’s largest cable TV company and the largest broadband provider.
Comcast only began offering Internet voice four years ago, while the traditional telephone companies have built their businesses over decades, said Dave Watson, Comcast’s national senior vice president of operations.
“In that short time we able to get there on the residential side,” Watson said. “They had a 100-year head start.”
The Philadelphia-based cable company’s voice figures don’t count the 543,000 secondary residential lines sold by Qwest, which would put the companies in a virtual draw.
“From a consumer line perspective, we’re in a dead heat,” said Bob Toevs, a Qwest spokesman. He pointed out Qwest’s customer base including businesses, Internet, wireless and video is 12.1 million, and it’s through that lens that Qwest views itself.
“We don’t refer to ourselves as the phone company anymore. We’re a telecom company,” he said. “The point for us is the customer experience we deliver across all these services.”
Comcast doesn't release market-specific numbers, so it's uncertain where the company ranks compared to Qwest when it comes to Twin Cities customers. However, Qwest does top Comcast when it comes to number of local employees. Qwest has 3,600 workers in Minnesota, while Comcast has 2,100, according to Business Journal research.
Comcast announced its residential phone ranking Wednesday, the same day it held regional conventions for its employees nationwide, including about 600 who gathered at the Denver Performing Arts Complex’s Sewell Ballroom.
Watson was at the Denver gathering when the announcement was made. Interviewed during a break, he called the No. 3 ranking a significant milestone for Comcast.
The company has won customers over with cheaper prices on the combination of video, phone and Internet access that they want, he said.
Comcast wants to focus more on changing consumers’ often negative perception of the business, and to be able to keep its hard-won voice customers for a long time, said Scott Binder, Comcast’s general manager in Colorado.
“Now it’s about about building the relationship between us and our customers,” Binder said.
Comcast also plans to increase its push to win small-business customers to its voice, video and broadband bundles, and to begin rolling out new technologies, Watson said.
One of those new technologies is very-high-speed Internet, which Comcast has begun offering in some markets.
Comcast’s upgraded systems achieve 6 megabits per second download speed for the same cost of its slower, standard Internet offering now, and it’s capable of download speeds of up 50 mbps for customers willing to pay more.
Binder said Comcast expects to be able to offer those speeds across Colorado by late 2009 or early 2010.
