On February 13, 2020 at 22:55, Hasbeen said...
Just to throw some more gas on the fire, I had a conversation with an "in-house" Xfinity technician a couple of weeks ago. He's been with the company for 15 years. Here's what he told me.
He was in a meeting a month ago where they were explaining to the employees that Xfinity/Comcast is no longer a "cable company" they're officially a "data provider". They want to provide the data for home, business, and mobile.
He said they weren't crystal clear about all of the details, but when I asked him his opinion on it, he said he thinks that they'll provide and maintain the Xfinity app on new TV's, Roku, etc. They'll do away with the hardware like cable boxes, and they'll provide the pipe into the home or business. 5G home networks may replace WIFI and they'll cut a ton of staff and save millions on hardware.
Think about those profit margins when they don't need technicians or the majority of the hardware anymore.
It will be 2 decades before they ditch the "cable box" because people will hold on to their TVs until they die. I have a 15 year old 42" Samsung plasma in my basement thats still kicking. At some point in 20 years most TVs will have an app for xfinity on them and they can get rid of their black box.
In the meantime they are transitioning people from the "cable box" to their little "roku knockoff" called Flex. In my area if you have an internet package you can get a free (for now) flex box that lets you access all your streaming apps via their voice remote.
[Link: xfinity.com] So yes technically they are moving away from the traditional cable box...but...they are moving you to the new streaming cable box.
