John Hendow

I’ll preface this posting by saying that I’m a geek and love technology. While this is a bit of a rant, it comes from a heart that ticks with excitement over the possibilities of the interconnected world. And so I’m occasionally disappointed when opportunity for advancement is being ignored. I am among the massive consumer base that begrudgingly pays Comcast for their service every month. Over the years I’ve probably sent them enough money to fund my own communication satellite. My general state of satisfaction with their Triple-Play services (digital voice, digital cable, broadband internet) can be described as “if there was an alternative I’d switch”. This isn’t a good state of affairs for a company as big as they are. Consider this: I have an iPhone and consider the AT&T service to be very good. So good that I can stomach paying the bill, content that I’m getting a good value for the price. I’m not attempting to argue that Comcast should lower their prices so much as they should raise their game. They should strive to be worth paying for. Some top-of-mind thoughts:

1. Digital TV / HD feeds are too compressed. In the never-ending drive to offer hundreds of useless channels, Comcast is over-compressing the best-looking source feeds to conserve bandwidth across the board. Consequently, everything suffers. I don’t want one thousand channels. I want one hundred good-looking ones.
2. Digital TV / On-Screen Menu system is ugly. Comcast needs a decent-looking menu system with antialiased text. On my HDTV it’s downright sad to look at that horrible font and its jagged lines. Build it in Flash or Silverlight. Get the feed via XML. Show me thumbnails.
3. Digital TV / On-Screen Menu system is slow and unresponsive. Every third (or second!) screen the menu system freezes while information is being pulled from the server. Is Comcast is actually pulling this request in real time for each user request? Why isn’t the entire current TV listing guide available as an XML file that can be stored on each local cable box? Why does it take so long for the system to respond? While the menu is retrieving data the cable box is frozen and will not respond to any command – including “exit and forget I asked”. It can take over 15 seconds for the system to return to a usable state. This is perhaps the most glaring issue with Comcast digital cable service. The processor in my Motorola cable box is capable of processing data more efficiently than this. Surely it could be outfitted with enough RAM to store a text file. If not, how about enabling that USB port on my cable box and let me plug in a thumb drive as an optional storage device for the menu?
4. Comcast provides my telephone, digital cable and broadband internet. Why are they just now beginning to offer a service (on-screen caller ID) that actually spans two of those digital services? Comcast hasn’t done anything to revolutionize their monopoly in the digital connectivity space. Every time I talk with friends we think of a dozen great  opportunities for them to blur the lines between these services and attract customers to purchase an integrated full-media package. Are we the only ones thinking of this? Here’s a thought: if I’m watching TV and some advertiser displays a properly formatted URL, why not convert it to a link and offer me the option to pop open a browser to view that page? What about letting me view TV in a window while I’m web surfing? Why can’t I listen to my phone messages from my TV menu? It’s just data, and it all comes from the same cable.
5. Comcast is the only physical connection available in my area. Some of my neighbors are using DTV or other satellite systems, which seem prone to issues. I prefer a direct connection and over the past few years I’ve grown so dissatisfied with Comcast that I’ve repeated attempted to order Verizon FIOS. Verizon has informed me that Comcast has some kind of territorial exclusivity in my area, and that they won’t bring FIOS into areas where Comcast has already pulled cable. Is this really good for either company? Comcast needs the competition to drive them. Clearly having a market lead hasn’t done them any good.
6. Digital Voice / Why are we even paying for this? What is it that is being offered here that we can’t accomplish via Skype? Why is Comcast charging for a service that offers nothing more than any telecommunications provider already does? This could be a huge value-add service for Comcast.

I hope someone challenges Comcast’s dominant position in the market and forces them to innovate. This company is consistently identified as having one of the lowest customer-satisfaction ratings across any US industry, and their response has been to advertise themselves as being the better choice rather than demonstrating any truth to that statement. They need someone to seriously drive them beyond 20th-century business behavior.