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Abstract Bullets:
• Comcast Enterprise has set a long-term aim of producing its “subsequent $10 billion” in annual revenues.
• Cellular and IoT are amongst areas the place a few of that progress is being sought, however efforts to date might be described as pragmatic and reasonable.
As Comcast Enterprise contemplates what it sees as a complete addressable market of $50 billion, it has been pragmatically plugging holes in its portfolio to pursue a number of the lower-hanging fruit round small enterprise, together with cellular (the place it reported 6.9 million client and enterprise prospects in Q1 2024). Certainly, mobility and IoT have been included usually in executives’ feedback on the Comcast Enterprise Analyst Convention in April 2024 the place there was additionally settlement that it stays early days for the corporate in these domains.
2023 noticed the launch of the Comcast Cellular Made Free supply, giving eligible customers of upper pace web (100 Mbps or greater) one yr of Comcast Enterprise Cellular Limitless at no extra price. By 2026-2027, the supplier hopes that cellular will account for 15% of recent enterprise progress. The way it plans to scale its cellular choices (which rely largely on its MVNO relationship with Verizon) additional for enterprise (and particularly the bigger enterprise section) is a piece in progress.
Comcast is a broadband entry chief, and it sees mounted wi-fi entry (FWA) as a chance to offer backup broadband connectivity to its enterprise prospects, which is more and more changing into a precedence given the reliance on ubiquitous, always-on high-speed web for inner and customer-facing enterprise practices (Comcast famous roughly 35% progress in visitors “yearly”). It is usually filling protection gaps by a take care of Starlink to succeed in areas of the US with restricted connectivity choices, addressing a present problem at 1000’s of its prospects’ extra rural places. Starlink and potential FWA options ought to assist Comcast improve enterprise buyer pockets share and stickiness.
Ten years in the past, the SMB and mid-market segments have been driving almost all of Comcast Enterprise’s income progress, and Comcast understands it must penetrate bigger organizations to keep up its topline pattern over the subsequent 5-10 years – and to succeed in its “subsequent $10 billion” in annual gross sales. Outdoors of its well-established world community enterprise acquired from Masergy, and its success within the US quick-service restaurant trade, Comcast has restricted enterprise publicity.
To that finish, Comcast Enterprise hosted 300 enterprise leaders not too long ago on the Gamers Championship PGA golf event, of which it turned a title sponsor in 2024. It took the chance to demo its non-public 5G community capabilities through the occasion, utilizing 4 SIM-connected video cameras to offer stay streams of motion from totally different vantage factors across the course on giant screens in spectator zones and complementing tv protection. The answer, utilizing an HPE/Athonet platform, confirmed how Comcast can avail of its CBRS PAL spectrum to boost fan expertise flexibly and effectively. This builds on earlier expertise deploying a personal 5G community for the Philadelphia 76ers, which helps stadium operations (crowd administration is the important thing real-time use case) in addition to fan experiences, and on the Sonoma County Fairgrounds, the place it partnered with non-public 5G vendor Celona. Comcast concedes that the everyday industrial atmosphere use instances for personal 5G are outdoors of its typical buyer segments however makes a compelling case that quick-service eating places and related distribution places might be ripe targets.
Personal networks – whether or not based mostly on 5G, fiber/Ethernet, or WiFi – may be mixed with a impartial host answer (corresponding to these Verizon and T-Cellular have provided) to assist make Comcast extra engaging to the mid-size and huge enterprise prospects it needs to draw past its present base. Organizations as various as hospitals and company enterprise headquarters are discovering conventional DAS options to be very costly, and there’s no motive why Comcast can’t additionally reap the benefits of the impartial host pattern.
Comcast cited its rising IoT management for crucial enterprise functions, vertical use instances and sustainability, based mostly on its homegrown MachineQ platform enterprise. This was information to the numerous attendees at its analyst convention who have been unfamiliar with MachineQ. It operates considerably distinctly from the mainstream enterprise and, outdoors of a demo attended by just a few analysts, was not mentioned in depth throughout the primary convention program. Regardless of this, MachineQ has been transferring alongside simply fantastic, rising its buyer listing to 300 enterprises. However at 500,000 IoT connections (primarily served by LoRaWAN), the variety of gadgets utilizing the platform is dwarfed by mobile IoT suppliers who’re additionally concentrating on MachineQ’s potential prospects with different low energy connectivity choices.