The numbers are not startling yet.
Comcast Corp. said Thursday it added more than 7,000 IP phone subscribers during the first quarter while cable phone revenue through AT&T Broadband declined 3.1 percent year-over-year to $173 million.
The Philadelphia-based cable operator has a head start in the looming battle with SBC Communications Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc., the phone giants gearing up to deliver hundreds of channels of video services in competition with cable TV.
Comcast plans to make VoIP available to all its customers by the middle of next year passing 40 million homes.
“In the first few years there will be a quality difference since Comcast will offer only VoIP and not real phone service, but as VoIP improves over the next few years I believe the cable companies and the phone companies will be evenly matched,” telecommunications analyst Jeff Kagan said today in a prepared note on Comcast’s earnings.
Revenue at Comcast rose about 9 percent in the first quarter to $5.36 billion, while the company reported net income of $313 million. That compares to a profit of $65 million in the period a year ago.
Comcast said high-speed Internet revenue jumped 32.5 percent to $925 million, reflecting strong subscriber growth and higher average revenue per subscriber. The company added 414,000 high-speed Internet customers to end the quarter with 7.4 million subscribers.
By comparison, SBC – the biggest broadband provider among phone companies – added 504,000 high-speed Internet subscribers in the first quarter to end the period with 5.6 million connections.
