Hasta La Gadget!

Twitter’s abuzz with angry Comcast customers tonight, as internet service is down in Boston and parts of the eastern United States, a situation the company’s since confirmed at its official Twitter account. Comcast’s calling it an unexpected outage and says that “engineers are finalizing the correction” as we speak, though it’s admittedly been a couple of hours since that tweet. Meanwhile, Twitter at large seems to have figured out it’s a Comcast DNS issue, and have had some luck switching to alternate servers like Google’s at 8.8.4.4. and 8.8.8.8. Let us know if those work in comments after the break… assuming you manage to find this post in the first place given the present state of your connection.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Comcast internet down across parts of the eastern seaboard, fix on the way originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 28 Nov 2010 23:16:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Hold your horses, Bubsy. While it looked like there were but a few Is to dot and Ts to cross before Comcast’s takeover of NBC Universal was official, folks in high places are now shaking their heads at a recent decision by the carrier. As the story goes, Comcast and NBC Universal are still in talks with the government over the proposed takeover, and it seems that a few wires were crossed in recent days; Comcast decided to announce a new management slate for NBC Universal just a few days ago, despite the fact that the takeover hasn’t actually been green-lit. According to an inside report over at The New York Times, one unnamed official in Washington had this to say: “For a deal this large, and one that hasn’t been approved, Comcast’s behavior is presumptuous and arrogant.” Of course, it’s not like this trigger-pulling in and of itself is reason for the whole deal to collapse, but it certainly won’t make things any easier on either company. So much for taking on those new roles (and accompanying raises) prior to Turkey Day, huh?

Regulators perturbed by Comcast’s executive reshuffling, NBC Universal takeover to blame originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 22 Nov 2010 18:35:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Ready or not, Comcast and NBC will walk down the aisle in matrimony — but it’ll not be without a few conditions. According to The Wall Street Journal, both the FCC and the Justice Department are expected to impose conditions on how NBC online video is distributed online, to ensure the cable operator (with online video distribution channels of its own) doesn’t withhold or threaten to withhold NBC Universal content from rivals — both Netflix and Apple are specifically cited by WSJ. The FCC is additionally considering restrictions on Comcast slowing down / blocking “legal traffic” from its internet network, maintaining a pro-net neutrality stance. Chairman Julius Genachowski is currently meeting with staffers twice a week on the deal, with the timetable of circulating proposed conditions by mid-December — narrowly avoiding sweeps week, unless 30 Rock has an idea or two up its Kabletown-owned sleeve.

FCC, Justice Department look to prevent Comcast from hogging NBC’s online video all for itself originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 15 Nov 2010 15:12:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Last quarter was the first time ever that US pay TV subscription rates were down. Now, according to GigaOM’s calculations, big cable suffered another set back in Q3, waving goodbye to over 500,000 subscribers in total. Comcast was saddled with over half of the carnage and lost 275,000 customers, while Time Warner took a 155,000 subscriber hit. Charter Communications and Cablevision fared slightly better, but still added 63,800 and 24,500 respectively to the industry pit of despair.

Naturally, the blame game for the poor numbers was aimed squarely at the weak economy and increased competition from over-the-top video providers. Before you call the undertaker away from his wrestling day job, though, remember that cable’s traditional backstop is to raise prices for remaining customers — vicious cycle, anyone? In fact, Comcast shared on its Q3 earnings call that average customer revenue rose by ten percent year over year to $136 a month. Charter’s similarly jumped by nine percent to $126, and while Cablevision’s didn’t increase by the same rate, monthly revenue per customer still amounted to a whopping $149 a month. So whether the reason is cord cutting or simply hard times, it’s hard to get worked up over self-inflicted wounds.

Big cable loses 500,000 subscribers in Q3, we neglect to send flowers originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 05 Nov 2010 06:18:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Clearwire isn’t in the black yet, having bled about $126 million in the second quarter of 2010 — but should the need arise for additional investment before it can turn a profit, the company shouldn’t plan to knock on Comcast’s door. Though it doesn’t have as much visibility in the 4G marketplace as Clear and Sprint do, Comcast does actually offer WiMAX service using Clearwire’s network and owns about 9 percent of it, but the cable provider’s CFO says that the prospects for upping that share aren’t good and that its up to Clearwire to “figure this out” — “this” being its financial pickle. Not exactly a vote of confidence, is it? Obviously, adding (or converting to) LTE is a possible game plan for Clearwire that’s going to require some serious cash to pull off, so staying tight with Sprint seems like a stellar idea right about now.

Comcast says additional Clearwire investment is unlikely originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 24 Sep 2010 00:54:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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