Roberts Snubs Wireless in CES Address
Moffet Notes Comcast CEO’s ‘Stick-To-Your Knitting’ Strategy
By Linda Moss -- Multichannel News, 1/8/2008 11:02:00 AM
LAS VEGAS -- A Wall Street analyst Tuesday noted that Comcast CEO Brian Roberts’ address to the consumer electronics industry focused on the company’s existing fiber-optic platform, with no mention of wireless service.
Sanford C. Bernstein analyst Craig Moffett issued the report after Roberts made his morning keynote address at the 2008 International Consumer Electronics Show.
“A key take-away is the “stick-to-your knitting” emphasis of all of this,” Moffett said in his report. “The focus on broadband -- and, notable for its lack of even a mention, the absence of wireless -- is positive on two fronts.”
Moffett went on to say, “First, it is reassuring with respect to future spending levels. Second, it is a not-so-subtle reminder that Comcast’s broadband distribution plant, at a time when bandwidth demand is everywhere here in Las Vegas, is very well positioned not just to keep pace, but indeed to benefit, from the macro-trends that define this year’s CES.”
The analyst noted Comcast’s announcement that it planned to have more than 1,000 HDTV offerings by the end of the year, and cited Roberts’ pitch for the tru2way open cable platform.
Moffett also made note of Comcast’s news that it planned to commercially deploy wideband broadband, the DOCSIS 3.0 platform, for 2008.
It “will offer speeds of 100 Mbps downstream or more to millions of Comcast homes by the end of this year [up to 50 Mbps upstream]. DOCSIS 3.0 is on par with capability of Verizon FiOS [and much faster than FiOS’s current offered speeds], and as much as 50-100x faster than telco legacy DSL. Demo’ed by downloading HD version of Batman Begins in less than four minutes (DSL would take more than six hours],” the analyst’s report said.
Moffett also noted plans for a “broad-scale launch of TiVO on Comcast, now available across all of New England.”
