CES: Comcast CEO Details Ambitious Plans

Comcast Chairman and CEO Brian Roberts made a strong effort to portray the nation’s top cableco as far more than a cable TV provider during a broad-sweeping keynote presentation Tuesday morning at the Consumer Electronics Show.

He did so by updating attendees on a number of key initiatives, detailed new efforts in the areas of communications services and focused on the first fruits of ongoing efforts with the industry’s top players.

Specific items included the launch of Fancast, a planned Internet entertainment and communications destination extending well beyond TV shows and movies, a deal with Panasonic to build set-top-box capability into HDTV sets, and an update on DOCSIS 3.0 technology deployment which will support greater network capacity – and hence performance – for these items and much more.

“It’s a whole new year for Comcast and a whole new attitude,” said Roberts. “We’re energized, excited and ready to get to work.” He is the first top executive from a cableco to deliver a keynote speech in the 40-plus year history of the Consumer Electronic Show.

“Some claim content is king and some claim distribution is king,” said Roberts. “But we believe the customer experience is king.” To that end, the CEO admitted the customer service it provides has been less than stellar and promised Comcast will work to raise the level going forward.

But perhaps the real key to better customer service is better service performance, whether new products and services or current ones, and a faster network to make all offerings quicker and more engaging and compelling. That’s where DOCSIS 3.0 comes into increasing focus as new modems that support its theoretical throughput of 160mbps downstream and 120mbps upstream.

That’s because Comcast currently provides a maximum bandwidth of 16mbps down and 2mbps up for Internet connectivity – and that’s using the operator’s PowerBoost technology which calls into service unused network bandwidth, where and when available, to push the speedometer.

Roberts and execs said Comcast hopes to have up to 20 percent of the homes it passes DOCSIS 3.0-ready by yearend, an effort that requires customers to swap in new cable modems to cash in on the as yet unpriced faster speeds.

“DOCSIS 3.0 is huge,” admitted Roberts in post-keynote comments. “But it’s really bigger than that. We have to have the best network to deliver everything.”

And in the latest installment of we-have more-HD-channels-than-you race, Roberts proclaimed Comcast will offer 1,000 HD TV shows and movies by yearend.

The bulk of the CEO’s presentation, however, was focused more on new content products and services as opposed to network technologies. Chief among them was the introduction of Fancast, which Roberts called “the first ever one-stop destination for entertainment content.” {vpipagebreak}

The site, which builds on assets acquired by Comcast over the past year or so, Fandango, features more than 7,000 hours of streaming video and more than 11 million pages of entertainment info, according to Roberts. In what could be a big breakthrough for Web portals, the cableco said Fancast lets users search for content across TV, the Web, on-demand assets, DVDs and trailers for movies in theaters.

The sites also learns from users’ history and recommends content they may be interested in, said Roberts. The site features integrated message access capabilities and will be equipped to enable users to instruct their DVRs to record located content, or have then receive an e-mail notification of it if they don’t have a DVR.

Roberts said Fancast functionality will be brought to the TV, noting that it’s an open, java-based application. A new version of Comcast’s guide that includes the app will debut in the first quarter of 2009, said Jim Tobin, group vice-president of product development for the cableco.

In what seems to be a departure for cablecos and other wireline operators, Comcast has been working with CE giant Panasonic to integrate their assets. The first fruits are two HDTV sets with “built-in” STB functionality, obviating the need for the devices.

The devices use CableLab’s open cable applications platform, which has been designed to open devices to house device-like functionality in the form of software. They will be available late this year, according to a Panasonic executive.

“We don’t see STBs going away, but they’re essentially a piece of furniture nobody wants,” admitted Mark Hess, a top Comcast executive.

Roberts said Comcast is also working with other CE giants on similar and unspecified products/integration efforts.

Panasonic and Comcast also teamed to create a portable media device that enables customers to access Comcast content when out of the house and on-the-run.

“This is very exciting and not something you’d expect from a cable operator,” said Mike Paxton, principal analyst of consumer markets for In-Stat.

Comcast Corp. www.comcast.com

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