To combat cord cutting, Comcast gives some plans free internet speed increases in OR, WA, and Houston but only to subscribers of both internet and TV service
Comcast keeps losing TV subscribers, but it has a new way to fight cord cutting. — As streaming video continues to chip away …
Context & Ripple Effects
Comcast crossed an inflection point back in 2015, when its broadband subscriber count passed its TV subscriber count for the first time. Since then it has tried repeatedly to keep video attached to the pipe — first with the cheap Stream web-TV add-on, then with the Xfinity Instant TV streaming beta for broadband-only customers.
The new speed giveaway inverts that approach: instead of selling cord-cutters a cheaper TV product, Comcast is paying existing double-play customers to stay bundled, using free bandwidth upgrades in Oregon, Washington, and Houston as the retention currency.
First-order effects
- Subscribers who take both Comcast internet and TV in the three launch markets get faster speeds at no added cost, while broadband-only households on the same plans get nothing — making the bundle visibly cheaper than unbundled equivalents.
Second-order effects
- Streaming services competing for these households now face a higher effective price gap, since leaving Comcast TV means forfeiting the free speed tier, not just losing channel lineups.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, ISPs increasingly treat bandwidth itself as a bundling subsidy rather than a product, deepening the divide between discounted triple-play pricing and standalone broadband — the same dynamic that left both Comcast and Charter unable to grow internet subscribers by mid-2022 once cheaper wireless home internet arrived.
The trend: Cord cutting is pushing cable operators from discounting video content to discounting network capacity itself, making the broadband-TV bundle the last line of defense for pay TV.