Comcast is hoping to score lots of new residential broadband customers with a converged mobile/broadband bundle that combines a 200 Mbps home broadband plan (with a Wi-Fi modem) with one Xfinity Mobile line for $50 per month for 24 months. Details of Comcast’s new converged plan was first reported by BestMVNO.
Comcast’s converged offering is strikingly similar to Charter’s Spectrum One plan that the cable company launched last October. The Spectrum One plan bundles a 300 Mbps home broadband plan (with a Wi-Fi modem) with a single mobile line for $49.99/month for 12 months. However, unlike Comcast, Charter offers Spectrum One to both new and existing customers.
Comcast needs to spur new broadband customer growth because in Q4 the company reported a loss of 26,000 broadband customers, thanks in part to the impacts of Hurricane Ian.
Along with the new converged plan, Comcast also debuted a new standalone home broadband plan that delivers 200 Mbps home broadband service to residential customers for just $25 per month. This new low-cost home broadband plan is in response to Verizon and T-Mobile’s fixed wireless access (FWA) home broadband promotions that are both priced at $25/month with no contract.
Both Comcast’s converged mobile/broadband plan and its new low-cost standalone broadband plan are being offered through March 21 and do not require a long-term contract.
New Street Research expects Comcast’s new converged plan to contribute to the company’s broadband recovery later this year. It also expects this new offer to be profitable for Comcast, particularly as it is limiting the plan to new residential broadband customers.
Charter’s Spectrum One plan has been a huge success for the company so far. In Q4 Charter added a record 615,000 mobile lines and Charter CEO Chris Winfrey attributed much of that Q4 mobile growth to the Spectrum One converged plan.
Comcast, meanwhile, gained 365,000 new mobile lines in Q4 2022, which was a strong quarter for the company but not anywhere near the momentum that Charter experienced.