Comcast Avoids Outsourcing Bundled Services

One of the most effective marketing tools that the telecommunications industry has come up with so far is the idea of bundled service. With bundled telecommunications services, a company will typically offer a combination of TV service, high speed Internet service, and home telephone service bundled together so that the subscriber gets all three services itemized on the same bill, and so only has to write one check every month. The idea is that the company can provide a discount in exchange for being entrusted with the extra business, and the subscriber can have greater convenience from only having to deal with one bill every month while saving that money.

There are some problems with the way that some companies provide bundled services though. For example, some companies will offer to provide services that they don’t specialize in and then outsource those services to other companies. The consumer still pays a single bill and still gets a discount, but ends up having to deal with three separate companies for other customer service needs.

While cable TV companies like Comcast are able to offer the added convenience of providing all three services themselves, satellite TV companies are often guilty of this. Basically, satellite TV companies try to offer bundled services in order to compete with cable TV companies who can do a much better job of it. But because of their nature, satellite TV companies are ill equipped to offer phone service or high speed Internet service, so they’ll typically refer their customers to a local phone company for a home phone line and a DSL internet connection.

While this strategy has the relative advantage of having the customer interact with two companies for these services instead of three, it also raises other problems. First of all, it forces customers to interact with a traditional phone company- an experience that many customer are trying to escape because of continually increasing rates and less than state of the art technology. The second problem with this set up is that it relies on DSL technology for a high speed Internet connection, and while DSL is certainly faster and more convenient than dial up, it’s debatable about whether or not it really counts as high speed Internet technology.

Another thing that satellite TV companies will often do, that companies like Comcast won’t, is outsource the phone line to the local phone company- which of course still has some of the problems outlined above- while outsourcing the high speed Internet service to a company that provides access to the Internet over a satellite connection. This has the clear disadvantage of involving three separate companies, but it also has a ton of disadvantages that come along with satellite Internet technology. While satellite Internet is faster than DSL- at least by a little bit- and more widely available, it’s a lot more expensive. We’re talking hundreds of dollars just for the specialized equipment to get the system up and running and then a small fortune every month for the service!

Plus, the built in time lag that’s part of satellite technology makes it unsuitable for VoIP applications which are probably the best prospect of freeing yourself from the grips of the phone company.

For all of these reasons, a cable TV company like Comcast can be a good choice for bundled services. Not only does Comcast offer the superior technology of broadband cable Internet- which is much faster and more reliable than satellite or DSL- but it also offers a quality phone service that’s an affordable alternative to the local phone company. Best of all, the fact that Comcast can provide all three of these services all by itself means that you never get the run around when you need customer service.

All of this means that a company like Comcast can provide bundled services the way they were meant to be- cheap, easy, and affordable.

Comcast Sets the Standard for Bundled Services

One thing that’s clear when you look at what consumers want with their home telecommunications services is that bundled service packages are extremely popular. These packages provide consumers with the convenience of only having to deal with one bill every month for several services, along with the advantage of receiving a deep discount compared to what it would cost to get those services separately from different companies. The services that are most commonly bundled together are TV, high speed Internet, and a home phone line; though most companies will let you bundle any two of those services.

While bundled service packages are extremely popular, and look like they should be easy things to implement, not all companies that offer bundled services do a particularly good job of it. Comcast is an exception with the way that bundles telecommunications service together. That’s because this company uses superior types of technology to provide the services that it offers and it provides all of those services itself rather than doling them out to other companies.

The practice of farming telecommunications services out to numerous companies is actually fairly common. Part of it is laziness on the part of the companies, but it’s also because the companies don’t have any choice because they don’t specialize in the technologies needed for all of the services. For example, a satellite TV provider simply isn’t set up to provide home phone service, just as telephone companies aren’t set up to provide TV. Therefore if satellite TV companies and telephone companies want to offer bundled services, they have to ally with each other.

While this makes sense for some of these companies on a business level, it hands the advantage to the others in many ways. First of all, having two or three different companies provide and administer three different services under the same contract inevitably results in poorer customer service. If nothing else, because one company can pass you off to another company if you have a problem, making it much tougher to get any problems actually taken care of. Since Comcast provides and administers its digital cable TV service, its high speed Internet service, and its home phone service; it can’t pass the buck on any issues that need to be addressed.

The other advantage is technological. For example, when you sign up for a satellite TV package and get high speed Internet service along with it, you’ll get the high speed Internet through either a satellite Internet service or DSL though the phone company. With Comcast your high speed Internet access will come through broadband cable technology. DSL can only marginally be considered a high speed Internet technology, and the fact that you need to get it through a phone company means that you’ll be subject to the whims of the phone company when it comes to rate changes. Satellite Internet technology is extremely expensive and unsuitable for a variety of applications because of the lag produced by the time that it takes signals to travel to and from the satellites. In contrast to these problems, broadband cable technology bypasses the phone company, is affordable, doesn’t have built in lag time, and is much faster than either of the alternatives. This technology also allows to offer better home phone service than a traditional phone company.

When you look at all of the different companies offering bundled services, it’s a good idea to take a good look at the details of how the bundles are put together.

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