Comcast’s attempt to slow broadband customer losses still isn’t stopping the bleeding as fiber and fixed wireless competition intensifies. In Q4 2025 alone, Comcast lost 181,000 broadband subscribers, even as it leans harder into wireless bundling and other business lines like Peacock and theme parks. Ars Technica reports:
The Q4 net loss is more than the 176,000 loss predicted by analysts, although not as bad as the 199,000-customer loss that spurred [Comcast President Mike Cavanagh’s] comment about Comcast “not winning in the marketplace” nine months ago. The Q4 2025 loss reported today is also worse than the 139,000-customer loss in Q4 2024 and the 34,000-customer loss in Q4 2023.
“Subscriber losses were 181,000, as the early traction we are seeing from our new initiatives was more than offset by continued competitive intensity,” Comcast CFO Jason Armstrong said during an earnings call today, according to a Motley Fool transcript. Comcast’s residential broadband customers dropped to 28.72 million, while business broadband customers dropped to 2.54 million, for a total of 31.26 million.
Armstrong said that average revenue per user grew 1.1 percent, “consistent with the deceleration that we had previewed reflecting our new go-to-market pricing, including lower everyday pricing and strong adoption of free wireless lines.” Armstrong expects average revenue per user to continue growing slowly “for the next couple of quarters, driven by the absence of a rate increase, the impact from free wireless lines, and the ongoing migration of our base to simplified pricing.” Comcast Connectivity & Platforms chief Steve Croney said the firm is facing “a more competitive environment from fiber” and continued competition from fixed wireless. “The market is going to remain intensely competitive,” he said.
Within the past year I shopped around for a new home internet provider. The legacy companies encouraged if not required talking to a human being to find out anything about service availability and rates and then be subject to a hard sales pitch. Appointment availability for the install was 2+ weeks out. The new fiber companies had all the info I could want clearly online, appointments available within 2 days, with minimal fuss. The legacy company humans were also often incorrect about their own product, potentially lying to make a sale.
If they act like a company from the 90s, they aren’t going to capture customers who came into adulthood after that.
That’s not even touching on the speeds they offer are slower than their competitors for a steeper price.
I can understand that speeds vary by area, but it’s not like it’s difficult at all to have those in a database where a web tool can return them based on your zip code. But yeah, it was like that when I signed up with Optimum (nee Suddenlink) years ago.
The other thing they do is require a truck roll for any kind of hookup. They almost got some of my business back but were so rigid that I said “the hell with it”. My fiber provider was having some growing pains and I called Optimum to reactivate my service on a lower plan to use as a backup connection (I work from home). All they needed to do was setup the account and re-authorize my modem (my hookup was still live and I had my own modem). They flat out refused to do any of that and required a tech to come “within 3-5 business days” and read the modem serial number to them to activate it. So I said hell with it, called T-Mobile, and activated my old 5G hotspot.
I’m currently moving from a place where my only options are AT&T or the cable company to a place where my only options are AT&T or the cable company.
My condolences. Where is this “competition breeds excellence” outcome that capitalism promised me?
Comcast—in the top ten of the shittiest companies of all time that no one wants to have to deal with—is surprised that their “new” deal of, “be slightly less villainous, and expect all our problems to go away” isn’t working.
despite … unlimited data
Unlimited data isn’t a selling point. That is shit you always had that Comcast took away, only to realize customers really fucking hate that. Returning to a basic level of service isn’t a boon; there is a looming Comcast threat they will fuck you again.
despite price guarantee
It’s a 1-year-promo price. Comcast just delays raping your wallet for a year in hopes you will lie back and think of England when the time comes.
I paid $180 a month for unlimited data on cox, but they threatened to terminate my account after I passed 1tb of upload in a month, they were calling and telling me it’s a violation of their terms of service. I said I pay for fucking unlimited data, “that doesn’t include upload” you scummy little fucks, false fucking marketing in that case because you advertised UNLIMITED DATA.
I lucked out when I bought a house that has quantum fiber, I pay $50 a month for 500/500 and real unlimited. I push 4 - 8 tb of usage per month with about half being upload.
Who knew that spending thirty years treating your customers like garbage would have them bail the moment they have a choice?
Yeah, literally everybody.
The fact that they think that “bundling” products people don’t want with products that they do want is a strategy to get MORE customers give you an idea if how disconnected these idiots are.
When you spend this much time fucking your customers the last thing they want is more shit from you. I’ll be dead in the ground before I let the people who fuck up my simple Internet billing every month handle my wireless plan and I’ll be damned if I pay fucking RENT on a shitty modem and router.
Fuck Comcast, it’s not even real Unlimited. You have to use their device, which is the most unsecure device in the world AND they still impose bandwidth caps and throttling if you exceed a certain amount in a day or week calling it “Excessive Use”.
You can use their modem with your own router. Just switch the modem to bridge mode and then you don’t have to deal with it or any of its security issues.
Reminder that Comcast is funding Trump’s ballroom and also has a contract with ICE.
I would guess it’s not just Comcast. Optimum serves my area and they’ve basically been begging people to switch back since this area got fiber a few years ago.
Their offers are like $25/mo for 200/10 Mbps and no data caps. But they’re not guaranteeing the price. Seems like they’re going after the lower end of the market.
I basically say “boo hoo”. This is what actual competition looks like. Cable companies have sat on their ass and milked their infrastructure for decades (only updating the headend equipment to keep up).
Optimum cold called me once and I flat out told them if they wanted me back, they need to run fiber to my home, give me the same symmetrical speed I have now, for at least $10 less than I’m paying my fiber provider, and lock that price for at least 5 years. The rep basically kinda sighed, so I guess they’ve heard that response from more than just me.
Ditching Comcast is one of the best decisions I think I’ve ever made.
I went with the T-Mobile home internet for a while, and then we got fiber in the area, so I went and changed to them, but if I can avoid it, I’ll never give Comcast another dollar of my money.
My first apartment had Comcast or DSL. I signed up, a month later I was part of their “experimental” data caps program. During the course of this I had a sales rep call and fell for the pitch. Turns out, he downright committed fraud and made promises that were patently untrue. It took 48 hours of back and forth in various mediums over the course of a month to get the situation resolved.
The solution was to complain on reddit and have an employee give me a one time use code to use Comcast’s VIP support center… Which is ridiculous that it exists in the first place.
I predicated all my subsequent (about 4) moves with “Comcast is not in the area” as a filtering criteria. Fuck Comcast.
An apartment I used to have had cable as the only option, and it was incredibly expensive, and they thought, since it was the only option available, that they could charge whatever they wanted and get away with it. And when I was using T-Mobile Home Internet in that apartment, I was getting a cheaper price and higher speeds than everybody else in the building.
Fixed wireless really does have a way of humbling these stupid legacy providers.
Weird. I don’t remember having an alt, or making this comment. :) Did the exact same progression, Xfinity to tmobile to fiber gig. Never going back to Xfinity.
Fiber isn’t the problem. I would move to DSL over Comcast.
Their customer service is garbage. Their service is overpriced. They bundle nonsense and are always pushing TV. They’re a dying breed.
I ditched cable TV over a decade ago for a simple antenna (and wrote a notable Reddit post on the antenna while I was at it). That was done because I was tired of my wallet being raped each month, because I had to buy a higher bundle to get the channels I wanted. I was stuck with cable internet for a number of years afterwards, as it was the only option in my area. Then T-Mobile offered up 5G based internet in my area at a low price. That was around 6 years ago and I haven’t looked back.
The cable companies sat on their laurels while the world moved on. They are now shocked that their terrible offerings for terrible prices are falling to real competition. Sure, I fully expect the new carriers to do everything in their power to enshitify their service offerings. That’s the nature of business/ But, with the market open to competition, there is now a real opportunity for us customers to shop around and get a less shitty experience. Broadband internet is a commodity and is completely fungible. Prices should be falling and it was only rent seeking rules keeping the prices up.
Count me among those lost customers. I had them for years but they are an absolute nightmare so last year I finally gave up and just cancelled my internet outright. Unfortunately fiber isn’t an option where I live. I’m looking at wireless right now, but atm I don’t have internet. Not having internet is preferable to dealing with Comcast’s bullshit tho.
I’m looking at wireless right now
The 5G home internet hookups from TMobile and Verizon are surprisingly good. In many places, they are what are competing with Comcast and drawing away customers. I would start with whichever you have the better signal with in your area.
That’s good to hear, because its looking like I’ll probably end up with one of those two! Thanks for the feedback.
I would love to become one of these lost customers.
See? Even friends of satan think comcast is too evil.
I dont like my ISP but it does let me use whatever ports I want for self hosting. Comcast does not without extra fees and even then its very expensive.
I don’t even bother with local ports anymore. It’s just too much hassle when I switch providers, email services all seem to universally sinkhole anything originating from a residential IP even if I am able to convince them to unblock 25/TCP, and I refuse to pay extra for a static IP or upsell to business class at a massive price increase.
My ISP, while otherwise fine, still has not rolled out IPv6 yet and the DHCPv4 lease duration is short and will randomly assign a different IP rather than renewing the lease on the existing one. I don’t like relying on dynamic DNS or relying on running a daemon to update my public DNS records when my public IP changes. Been there, done that, and bought a crappy t-shirt at the gift shop.
I’ve had a VPS for close to 10 years now that is my main frontend and, through some VPN and routing trickery, allows me to have my email server on-prem but use the VPS for all inbound and outbound communication. A side effect benefit of this setup is I can run my email server from literally anywhere and from anything with an internet connection. I’ve got a copy of my email stack on a Pi Zero clone that stays in sync with my main one. During long power outages, I can start that up and run it from a hotspot with a power bank running it for almost 2 days (or indefinitely when I’m also charging the power bank from a solar panel lol).
I used to port forward, but I have stopped doing it. I don’t want to have open ports on the same IP that I use for internet browsing.
I have my local server connected, via WireGuard, to a cheap nearby VPS. All my services are exposed from that VPS.
This configuration also offers full portability to my home server, allowing me to switch to any ISP, or even move to mobile data, if I have to.
For applications that require even lower latency, like remote gaming, I use Tailscale, which can traverse the NATs and create direct connections between the devices.
I just have a firewall and call it a day. No more extra services, no extra money, and as long as 80/443 are good externally and a couple of others im good. Its a small server, I dont even have ssh open outside the network.
Maybe take some of that broadband expansion money you took over the last 20 years and upgrade your network.
As a NYer: Is that what’s supposed to happen?
