Summary Bullets:
• Comcast Business has set a long-term goal of generating its “next $10 billion” in annual revenues.
• Mobile and IoT are among areas where some of that growth is being sought, but efforts so far can be described as pragmatic and realistic.
As Comcast Business contemplates what it sees as a total addressable market of $50 billion, it has been pragmatically plugging holes in its portfolio to pursue some of the lower-hanging fruit around small business, including mobile (where it reported 6.9 million consumer and business customers in Q1 2024). Indeed, mobility and IoT were included often in executives’ comments at the Comcast Business Analyst Conference in April 2024 where there was also agreement that it remains early days for the company in those domains.
2023 saw the launch of the Comcast Mobile Made Free offer, giving eligible users of higher speed internet (100 Mbps or higher) one year of Comcast Business Mobile Unlimited at no additional cost. By 2026-2027, the provider hopes that mobile will account for 15% of new business growth. How it plans to scale its mobile offerings (which rely in large part on its MVNO relationship with Verizon) further for business (and especially the larger enterprise segment) is a work in progress.
Comcast is a broadband access leader, and it sees fixed wireless access (FWA) as an opportunity to provide backup broadband connectivity to its business customers, which is increasingly becoming a priority given the reliance on ubiquitous, always-on high-speed internet for internal and customer-facing business practices (Comcast noted approximately 35% growth in traffic “every year”). It is also filling coverage gaps through a deal with Starlink to reach areas of the US with limited connectivity options, addressing a current challenge at thousands of its customers’ more rural locations. Starlink and potential FWA features should help Comcast increase business customer wallet share and stickiness.
Ten years ago, the SMB and mid-market segments were driving nearly all of Comcast Business’s revenue growth, and Comcast understands it needs to penetrate larger organizations to maintain its topline trend over the next 5-10 years – and to reach its “next $10 billion” in annual sales. Outside of its well-established global network business acquired from Masergy, and its success in the US quick-service restaurant industry, Comcast has limited enterprise exposure.
To that end, Comcast Business hosted 300 enterprise leaders recently at the Players Championship PGA golf tournament, of which it became a title sponsor in 2024. It took the opportunity to demo its private 5G network capabilities during the event, using four SIM-connected video cameras to provide live streams of action from different vantage points around the course on large screens in spectator zones and complementing television coverage. The solution, using an HPE/Athonet platform, showed how Comcast can avail of its CBRS PAL spectrum to enhance fan experience flexibly and efficiently. This builds on previous experience deploying a private 5G network for the Philadelphia 76ers, which supports stadium operations (crowd management is the key real-time use case) as well as fan experiences, and at the Sonoma County Fairgrounds, where it partnered with private 5G vendor Celona. Comcast concedes that the typical industrial environment use cases for private 5G are outside of its typical customer segments but makes a compelling case that quick-service restaurants and associated distribution locations could be ripe targets.
Private networks – whether based on 5G, fiber/Ethernet, or WiFi – could also be combined with a neutral host solution (such as those Verizon and T-Mobile have offered) to help make Comcast more attractive to the mid-size and large enterprise customers it wants to attract beyond its existing base. Organizations as diverse as hospitals and corporate business headquarters are finding traditional DAS solutions to be very expensive, and there’s no reason why Comcast can’t also take advantage of the neutral host trend.
Comcast cited its emerging IoT leadership for critical business applications, vertical use cases and sustainability, based on its homegrown MachineQ platform business. This was news to the many attendees at its analyst conference who were unfamiliar with MachineQ. It operates somewhat distinctly from the mainstream business and, outside of a demo attended by a few analysts, was not discussed in depth during the main conference program. Despite this, MachineQ has been moving along just fine, growing its customer list to 300 enterprises. But at 500,000 IoT connections (primarily served by LoRaWAN), the number of devices using the platform is dwarfed by cellular IoT providers who are also targeting MachineQ’s potential customers with other low power connectivity options.