CEO Brian Roberts admits Comcast hasn’t competed well for low-end broadband

Billions of dollars are about to flow from the Broadband Equity Access & Deployment (BEAD) Program, which is driving all kinds of interest in delivering fiber broadband to unserved and underserved areas of the US. In addition, the wireless carriers, T-Mobile and Verizon, are deploying fixed wireless access (FWA) in many underserved areas where people have never been happy with their choices of low-speed cable or DSL. Comcast CEO Brian Roberts said, “I don't think we competed as well for the lower end of the market. We had something called Internet Essentials, which we've been, for $10 a month, kind of promoting to underserved communities. And it was quite successful for many years. All of a sudden there were new government stimulus and all sorts of attention focused on a different end of the market.” He said Comcast Cable President Dave Watson is now “competing better for this lower-end segment,” although he didn’t elaborate on specifically what Comcast was doing. Roberts went on to ding FWA for its alleged capacity problems — that Verizon and T-Mobile are constrained in many areas because they won’t want to deplete valuable mobile wireless capacity to serve FWA broadband to homes.