Comcast today announced it will extend its COVID-19 crisis commitments until the end of June, including a continued suspension of its 1 TB data cap.

“These extended measures will continue to keep Americans safe and ensure that households are equipped for students to learn and stay informed at home as the nation copes with this unprecedented disruption to our daily lives,” said Dave Watson, Comcast Cable CEO. “Our services have never been more important, and we’re doing everything we can to keep people connected to the internet.”

Here is a reminder of Comcast’s commitments:

• No data caps: All customers have unlimited access until at least June 30, 2020. Make sure you are not paying Comcast extra for an unlimited data plan everyone can now get for no extra charge.
• No disconnects or late fees: To qualify, customers MUST contact Comcast and explain they are having difficulty paying bills because of current economic conditions. Those that do will not have their service suspended and late fees will be waived.
• XFINITY Wi-Fi: Is open to anyone that wants to use a Comcast Wi-Fi hotspot. You do not need to be a customer.
• Internet Essentials: If you qualify as a low-income household, you can get internet service from Comcast for $9.95 a month, with the first 60 days free.

Comcast is planning to debut its new streaming TV platform under the NBC “Peacock” brand next April with a lineup of original shows starring well-known talent including Alec Baldwin, Demi Moore, Christian Slater, and Ed Helms.

Peacock will most closely resemble the advertiser-supported Hulu platform, with 21 million Comcast cable television customers getting access for free. Comcast is reportedly also negotiating with other cable, satellite, and telco TV providers about bundling free basic Peacock subscriptions for their cable TV customers as well. Those who never subscribed to cable TV or cut the cord will be offered the option of a lower cost, commercial-filled subscription or a more expensive ad-free option, presumably at prices similar to what Hulu charges ($5.99-11.99).

Peacock’s subscription model is designed to protect Comcast’s cable TV revenue. For existing Comcast cable TV customers, giving ad-supported subscriptions away for free may add to the value proposition of keeping a cable TV subscription. By charging subscription fees to everyone else, Comcast is not ‘giving away the store for free.’ If it did, it could upset other pay television companies that are facing ever-rising retransmission consent fees and programming costs for Comcast/NBC-owned TV stations and cable networks including CNBC, MSNBC, and the USA Network.

Comcast is confident its long experience offering streaming TV Everywhere services including live streaming and on demand programming will mean it will not face the kinds of scaling mistakes other streaming services have had. Bonnie Hammer, the NBCUniversal executive appointed to run Peacock, believes the service’s deep content catalog, starting with 15,000 hours of NBC and Universal Studios TV shows and movies complimented with other acquired and original productions will give viewers plenty to watch.

“I’m not sure anybody else out there can do what we can do,” Hammer told the Wall Street Journal. “We expect to have great content and a great product [that] is really easy to use.”

In addition to scripted content, Peacock will also feature live and recorded news and sports programming from NBC.

Among the shows featured on the Peacock platform:

Original Drama Series

ANGELYNE (limited series)
Limited series based on The Hollywood Reporter feature that explored the identity of L.A.’s mysterious billboard bombshell.

BATTLESTAR GALACTICA
Battlestar Galactica reboot.

BRAVE NEW WORLD
Based on Aldous Huxley’s 1932 novel, Brave New World. The series envisions life in a utopian society that bans monogamy, privacy, money, and never discusses history.

DR. DEATH
Inspired by a podcast by the same name. Dr. Death follows the true story of Dr. Christopher Duntsch (played by Jamie Dornan), a rising star in the Dallas medical community who also emerges as a deadly sociopath. Duntsch’s successful neurosurgery practice gradually deteriorates into a horror show of permanently disabled or dead patients. Two fellow doctors, played by Alec Baldwin and Christian Slater, fight an entrenched medical bureaucracy designed to protect money-making doctors to get his practice shut down.

ONE OF US IS LYING (pilot)
Based on the novel One of Us Is Lying, the crime series follows the unfolding of events after five people spend an afternoon in detention, but only four leave alive.

UNTITLED REAL HOUSEWIVES SPINOFF (no details provided)

Original Comedy Series

A.P. BIO (Season 3)
Picks up where the original NBC TV series left off. When disgraced Harvard philosophy professor Jack Griffin (Glenn Howerton) loses out on his dream job to his rival Miles Leonard (Tom Bennett), he is forced to return to the small town Toledo, Ohio and work as an advanced placement biology teacher at the fictional Whitlock High School. Jack makes it clear to his class that he will not be teaching any biology. Realising he has a room full of honor-roll students at his disposal, Jack decides to use them for his own benefit: getting revenge on Miles. Eager to prove that he is still king of the castle, Principal Durbin (Patton Oswalt) struggles to keep Griffin under control.

PUNKY BREWSTER (pilot)
This continues of the iconic 80s sitcom about a bright young girl raised by a foster dad features Punky as a now single mother of three trying to get her life back on track when she meets a young girl who reminds her a lot of her younger self.

RUTHERFORD FALLS
A small town in upstate New York is turned upside down when local legend and town namesake, Nathan Rutherford (Ed Helms) fights the moving of a historical statue.

SAVED BY THE BELL (reboot)
When California governor Zack Morris gets into hot water for closing too many low-income high schools, he proposes they send the affected students to the highest performing schools in the state – including Bayside High. The influx of new students gives the over-privileged Bayside kids a reality check.

STRAIGHT TALK
Straight Talk examines what happens when two opposing ideologies are forced into an odd coupling. The main characters will be challenged by one another, making the moral lines at which they once stood harder to define.

Original Unscripted Shows 

THE AMBER RUFFIN SHOW
A weekly show featuring Amber’s “signature smart-and-silly take on the week.” The show will de-emphasize talking with guests and spend more time on comedy routines.

WHO WROTE THAT
A docuseries designed to showcase Saturday Night Live’s comedy writers.

Original Made-for-Peacock TV Movie

PSYCH 2: LASSIE COME HOME
Based on the USA Network show Psych, Santa Barbara Police Chief Carlton Lassiter is ambushed on the job and left for dead. In a vintage Psych-style Hitchcockian nod, he begins to see impossible happenings around his recovery clinic. Shawn and Gus return to Lassie’s side in Santa Barbara and are forced to navigate the personal, the professional, and possibly the supernatural. Separated from their new lives in San Francisco, our heroes find themselves unwelcome in their old stomping grounds as they secretly untangle a twisted case without the benefit of the police, their loved ones, or the quality sourdough bakeries of the Bay Area. What they uncover will change the course of their relationships forever.

Legacy Shows in the Peacock Catalog

Bates Motel
Brooklyn Nine-Nine
Cheers
Chrisley Knows Best
Covert Affairs
Downton Abbey
Everybody Loves Raymond
Frasier
Friday Night Lights
House
Keeping Up with the Kardashians
The King of Queens
Married … with Children
Monk
Parks and Recreation (exclusive, available Oct. 2020)
Parenthood
The Office (exclusive, available Jan. 2021)
Psych
The Real Housewives
Royal Pains
Saturday Night Live
Superstore
30 Rock
Top Chef
Will & Grace
100 Dias Para Volver (Spanish-language)
Betty in NY (Spanish-language)
El Barón (Spanish-language)
Preso No. 1 (Spanish-language)

Peacock’s Legacy Movies Catalog

American Pie
Back to the Future
A Beautiful Mind
Bourne franchise
The Breakfast Club
Bridesmaids
Brokeback Mountain
Casino
Dallas Buyers Club
Despicable Me franchise
Do the Right Thing
Erin Brockovich
E.T. The Extra Terrestrial
Fast & Furious
Field of Dreams
Jaws
Knocked Up
Mamma Mia!
Meet the Fockers
Meet the Parents
Shrek

The average Comcast broadband customer now consumes over 200 GB of online data per month, an increase of 34% over just one year ago, according to Dave Watson, president and CEO of Comcast Cable Communications.

The increased usage accelerated during the last quarter of 2018, Watson told investors on a quarterly conference call.

What remains unchanged is Comcast’s data cap, which remains fixed at 1 TB per month for many customers. To avoid overlimit penalty fees of $10 for each additional 50 GB block of data consumed (up to $200 per month), Comcast is still pitching its unlimited data option — insurance against Comcast’s own overlimit penalties, which costs a growing number of customers an extra $50 a month.

Watson knows data usage over Comcast’s network is about to grow exponentially, mostly thanks to streaming video.

“I think that we start with the central view that streaming is going to happen, video over the internet is more friend than foe. and we wish every bit was our bit,” Watson told investors this morning. “If people consume more bits and video clearly does that, and 4K video does even more than that, that is the sweet spot of where this company is going to grow.”

Translation: We intend to make a killing on usage growth. Comcast can market you a faster internet package at a higher price, or as your usage approaches the data cap, scare you into buying overlimit insurance.

Remember that Comcast drops usage caps for some customers willing to rent their latest network gateway (available only in some areas at this time).

If your home or business is more than 150 feet from the nearest Comcast cable, the company will think twice before providing you with service.

Pat Ulrich and her 50 neighbors in a rural subdivision in Arkansas have waited more than 15 years for Comcast or AT&T to extend broadband service to no avail, not unless they are willing to pay an installation fee of almost $50,000.

“When we evaluate prospective new build opportunities, we take into account such factors as distance from where our nearest network exists, costs associated with a proposed build-out, and number of homes and businesses that could be served. … This subdivision is many miles from our nearest plant.” Alex Horwitz, vice president of public relations for Comcast, told Arkansas Business. A nearby neighbor of Ulrich was quoted $46,000, mostly to install over 6,400 feet of fiber optic cable to connect the subdivision to Comcast’s network.

Pulaski County, Ark.

AT&T is no help either, because the homes are too far away from the phone company’s central switching office to deliver adequate internet service.

The FCC’s Connect America Fund (CAF) and other broadband funding initiatives normally might offer Ulrich and her neighbors some help, except for the fact the FCC’s broadband availability maps falsely claim the subdivision is already getting broadband service, which disqualifies it from receiving broadband expansion subsidy funding.

“We built a house in 2004 and never imagined it would take this long to get reliable broadband service,” Ulrich said.

Comcast and other cable operators did, however. Unlike phone companies that are mandated to provide basic telephone service to any customer seeking it, cable companies are allowed to choose the areas they service, typically based on population density and the costs associated with providing service. For Comcast, service extensions must meet the company’s return on investment test, and Ulrich’s subdivision failed. Horowitz claimed extending service would require Comcast to route a fiber extension through an area that “is almost all rock.”

Comcast is investing in some buildouts in its service area, but mostly to serve business parks. For residential areas, the company wants to limit the amount of cable it must install to reach a prospective customer to under 150 feet. If service is not available on your street, chances are the company will quote an installation fee running into the thousands of dollars.

Unfortunately for Ulrich, even if she managed to have the FCC correct their broadband availability map, Horwitz said Comcast has not bid for any of the FCC’s CAF projects in Arkansas.

Xfinity Flex

Comcast today announced the launch of Xfinity Flex, a $5/month service targeting Comcast’s internet-only customers with a streaming set-top box capable of accessing Comcast-approved apps including Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, HBO, and other services.

Subscribers must have a Comcast-supplied internet connection, no video package, and an xFi Gateway (a cable modem/router combination that costs between $10-13 a month to lease). After the new service becomes available nationwide next week, those enrolling will receive a small set-top box comparable to a Roku capable of streaming 4K HDR video. Comcast also supplies its own voice remote, and bundles access to Comcast’s apps that manage in-home Wi-Fi, mobile, security, and automation services for easy access.

“Xfinity Flex will deepen our relationship with a certain segment of our Internet customers and provide them with real value,” said Matt Strauss, executive vice president of Xfinity Services for Comcast Cable. “For just five dollars a month, we can offer these customers an affordable, flexible, and differentiated platform that includes thousands of free movies and shows for online streaming, an integrated guide for accessing their favorite apps and connected home devices, and the ease of navigating and managing all of it with our voice remote.”

A closer look at the device and the fine print suggests customers may want to carefully evaluate whether Flex offers good value for money. Instead of buying a traditional streaming set-top box like Roku, customers can only lease the Flex box for $5 a month… indefinitely. Comcast is not including any programming with the box, just hardware to access streaming content already available, often for free, on other streaming or desktop platforms. Flex’s search function is supposed to make it easier to find programming across a wide number of services, but you will have to subscribe to each service independently.

Comcast also warns that using Flex will count against your monthly data cap.

The 4K capable Roku 3920R can be purchased from Best Buy for $39.99.

Comcast has also carefully designed the box to protect the cable company from any competitive threats. Competing streaming services like DirecTV Now, Sling TV, YouTube TV, Hulu Live, and other services are intentionally blocked, another example of life without net neutrality. The only available path to cable TV programming using Flex is to visit the ‘easy upgrade’ app that will sign you up for Comcast’s X1 cable TV service, presumably the one you cord-cut before you signed up for Flex.

The service is also designed to protect other cable companies from competition from Comcast. Only Comcast internet customers can purchase Flex service, so it is not available to customers of Charter Spectrum, Cox, Altice, or other cable operators.

The $5 subscription fee is also misleading, because you will also have to rent Comcast’s own xFi Gateway, which costs between $10-13 a month, instead of using your own cable modem. That suddenly makes Flex a $15 a month service that essentially just gives you access to a walled garden of the services Comcast approves of for around $180 a year (including the Gateway).

Comcast probably won’t attract a big audience for Flex because of all the restrictions it comes with.

Consider buying a streaming set-top box outright instead of living with Comcast’s restrictions and mandatory gateway fees. Shoppers can find basic Roku devices for purchase under $30, with more capable 4K-compatible devices starting at around $40.