100Mbps uploads and downloads should be US broadband standard, senators say

Re:100Mbps uploads and downloads should be US broadband stan... by lazerpants on Thursday March 04, 2021 @05:54PM (#26349655)

I checked Comcast's 10k report and their margin for the segment including broadband is over 40%, which is crazy but about what you would expect from a de facto monopoly. I don't think forcing them to invest in capex to benefit customers is asking so much when they are making those kinds of margins.

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Re:100Mbps uploads and downloads should be US broadband stan... by SpaethCo on Thursday March 04, 2021 @10:45PM (#26352365)

Those margins are misleading because they're _multi_ service operators, and accounting standards require that you can only list direct costs.

Revenue is easy: how much did you take in for video? phone? Internet access?

Costs are harder because you can only include business line direct costs. Since the cable plant is used by voice, video and data services it's not a direct cost of any of them. Same thing with the service vehicle fleet, call centers, etc. Most things get saddled in "administration" categories and obscure the true cost of providing the service. As a company overall, their margins been hovering around 8-12%.

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Re:100Mbps uploads and downloads should be US broadband stan... by maxerickson on Friday March 05, 2021 @09:41AM (#26357322)

They report all of the services using the cable as a single segment of their business. Of course they are attributing operating costs to that segment.

Like 40% of the segment cost is "programming" (TV), so the internet part of the service likely has even better operating margin than the segment overall (basically, slightly higher revenue than TV with considerably lower costs).

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Re:100Mbps uploads and downloads should be US broadband stan... by lazerpants on Friday March 05, 2021 @09:30AM (#26357205)

That was margin derived from operating revenue, it includes SG&A for the entire division.

Do you have a source stating otherwise?

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