This is great for Comcast thats in the media etc. Them teaming up with SD-WAN will just make them offer more to what they already have and many more options for us and them to generate more revenue.
mpouraryan 9/13/2017 6:14:52 PM User Rank Platinum
Re: Comcast has SD-WAN
Before "running off" as I caught up with you all (and not to change the subject), an FYI courtesy of th folks at the Business Insider...especially as thanks to Adiyta earlier, we had a chance to reflectr upon how Broadcast TV seems to have its' "second wind":
@dcawrey, they really do appear to have matured. I believe their "integrated" approach will make them distinctive in the markets and with their offerings.
This is impressive and will be interesting to see how it plays.
They have really started pushing it in my area. I think it is really telling that their pitch is about internet services, then they add that they can also offer phone and internet for only $30 a month.
@afwriter, great example of the competitive edge this gives them. They appear to have done their homework and really are transforming their service models?
Only a few years ago I was sure that Comcast was destined to fail. They may not be ahead of the pack with SD-WAN, but they are doing a lot better than I thought they would be.
@afwriter If you spoke to anyone in the NYC area just a few years ago about Comcast, you definitely would have thought it was going downhill. This is a great example of a company that is evolving, and leveraging SD-WAN is a smart move for this company.
JohnBarnes 9/18/2017 3:10:02 PM User Rank Platinum
Re: Comcast has SD-WAN
Ariella, DCawrey,
The catch is that technical possibilities are now advancing so fast that to a great extent the users not only have trouble keeping up with what's on the menu, they have trouble understanding what it is even when it's available. A lot of current cutting-edge marketing consists of trying to figure out which features will seem valuable to a customer trying the thing out, rather than the old kind of marketing where you just give them a list of possible benefits and features and ask them to check the ones they want.
@JohnBarnes True, though I often get the impression that the tech producers are making more features and options than I want just to try to upsell me. Certainly, that's the case with my internet service. I don't need the speediest, just the speed that handles what I currently do. And I'd rather keep my subscription price steady than keep upgrading.
JohnBarnes 9/19/2017 2:40:06 PM User Rank Platinum
Re: Comcast has SD-WAN
Ariella,
Speaking as a guy with too many years in sales, yeah, the drive to upsell is surely part of it.
But speaking as a guy with too many visits to wherever the tech frontier was in my lifetime, another problem is that the tech advances so fast that it is really hard to follow the zeroth law of marketing, "always convert features to benefits." The engineers have something working in June that was laboratory experiments in April and a theoretical-possibility paper in January ... how is the salescritter (in July) supposed to tell the customers why they want it? The tendency to fall back on pulling random sentences from the engineer reports, or to simply declare it's NEW! and IMPROVED!, or to pack buzzwords together and hope other people don't understand any more than you do, is pretty overwhelming, especially when it may really not be practical to figure out the real feature-to-benefit match (for one thing, so much of that comes from experience).
mpouraryan 9/19/2017 3:54:16 PM User Rank Platinum
Re: Comcast has SD-WAN
You lay out @JohnBarnes the exact case as to why we should not ever be "taken in" by the latest and greatest--and only to let it all work thru it--as eptiomized of course by the iphone X--as there is "of course", the impact on the planet itself that should "hopefully" be of concern to all:
@mpouraryan, I totally agree. I keep all devices until end-of-life. I never buy the first version of anything. I let the company get all the defects fixed. I buy the third, fourth or fifth version of a device. It also saves me money.
@Mpouraryan, I am a tech junkie who loves his iPhone but I want nothing to do with the iPhone X. In the past, I have embraced the changes but face recognition and no home key are a step too far for even me. And now you bring up environmental impact which is just one more reason to be against it.
mpouraryan 9/28/2017 11:23:33 AM User Rank Platinum
Re: Comcast has SD-WAN
...I met with AT&T yesterday to pick up an iPhone 8 for my son--I asked about the tracitoin for iphone 8--and they said--not much as folks are waiting fir iPHone X--the idea, though, of paying $ 1000 for a phone is going to be a challenge. As I hope you agree, we must never say never in Tech--and be open--but the platform has to prove itself no doubt--not iwthstanding the hype that comes out of Apple--and on that I know we're on the same page
...what is clear is this--never ever a dull moment!! ;
@JohnBarnes that reminds of an "All in the Family" episode in which Archie's son-in-law complained about everything being labelled "New and Improved." He said, "What did we have before, old and lousy?"
JohnBarnes 9/25/2017 9:25:51 PM User Rank Platinum
Re: Comcast has SD-WAN
Ariella,
Consider the humble frozen dinner, once known as the TV dinner. Once they had to be heated in conventional ovens, took as long as making a quick meal from scratch, and tasted like crap. Now, with microwave, they can be heated without heating the kitchen, take just a couple of minutes -- and still taste like crap. But what has happened is that most of the funcitons of a meal (other than stuffing in enough calories to stay alive) went away with the old version, and the features that were later added to the old version (speed, convenience, keeping raccoons from looking forward to your garbage) became what it was "really" about. So, no, it's not that we formely had "old and lousy." It's that we now have "something from a different category set altogether, whether for good or ill".
@JohnBarnes There actually have been some innovations in the instant cooking, including some boxed meals that require no refigeration and then heat themselves through a chemical reaction -- so no appliances needed. But ifyou ant real home-cooked food taste, you won't find it there. So we get new and improved methods of preparation but no necessarily new and improved products in terms of quality of taste.
@Ariella, I agee. We definitely need Truth in Advertising. We need it to be are strict as Truth in Lending laws for mortgages. The FTC has some Truth in Advertising laws but they need more.
@JohnBarnes, you are so right. I hadn't looked at it that way. The things that really need improvement never get improved, just the fluffy stuff. I am still amzed that cell phone service still has dropped calls, batteries that don't last longer than a few hours maybe a day as long as you don't use the phone, stream data, view videos, call or text.
Comcast has taken a unique approach which is what leader companies do. Allowing customers to get the SW router and firewall is awesome. It will be interesting to see if it works or fails.
elizabethv 9/27/2017 8:48:08 AM User Rank Platinum
Re: Comcast offerings
@afwriter - I haven't had my dual band router for all that long, but so far I'm not the biggest fan. It was supposed to make my internet faster - so they told me. But I have yet to have really been sold on that line. Especially after the internet being down for so long last week. I'm still a little jaded. Lol.
elizabethv 9/28/2017 7:47:40 AM User Rank Platinum
Re: Comcast offerings
@Ariella - it was down from like 2 or 4 (it was over a week ago now I don't remember exactly when it started) but I do know it didn't come back on until after 2AM. I was working when it came back on, and it was down at work also. (I live 15 miles from my job) My community has a closed Facebook Group, and people were posting on a feed we had going about it when it started coming back on for everyone. I think some people did receive notifications, but I did not. But then I never called them and complained either, since I knew so many others that were calling and knew why my was out. Because I work nights and take care of my kids during the day, I'm pretty selective about how I spend my time on work days. Being one of hundreds of people calling about the same problem didn't sound overly productive.
@elizabethv I understand. sometimes it takes so long just to call in that there seems little point in doing it. Was the outage due ot weather conditions or something else?
@ElizabethV, I guess it comes down to what your old speeds were. I was only getting a paltry 12 MBS download from the other guys so pretty much anything is faster. I like the ability to be able to pick and choose which band I want certain connected devices to use so I can maximize speeds on the devices I want.
Comcast says it is focusing on listening to their business customers yet those don't listen to their residential customers. What they are thinking about shoud always be replaced by what customers actually want. That is why Comcast has so much churn on the residential side.
elizabethv 9/27/2017 8:52:44 AM User Rank Platinum
Re: Listening
@freehe - I always feel like Comcast doesn't really have to listen to their customers. If you want high speed internet that doesn't travel via satellite, or put you on a buddy line, Comcast is literally your only option where I live. I've tried CenturyLink, but it just goes too slow. And something like HughesNet is just not allowed for some of the jobs I do. And Phoenix I know has the same problem, but their provider is Cox. And when you really only have one choice, there is little listening that any business has to do for a customer.
I'm in the same boat here. I only have two options to choose from and neither of them are preferred. I wish we could see more market competition so internet providers were held liable to their customers and their promises.
I can't argue that Comcast has a long way to go in customer satisfaction, but I think they are starting to change. I think the squeeze they are feeling from OTT is starting to make them reconsider how poorly they have been treating their customers over the past decade plus.
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