Tuesday, September 30, 2008

47% of Cable Subs Might Be Willing to Switch

About 47 percent of cable company video subscribers say they are willing to consider switching their video service from cable to an IPTV service, say researchers at CFI Group. That level of interest occurs when customers are presented with a 100-plus channel menu and monthly prices in the $40 to $50 range.

At that level of retail prices, the upside for telcos is not gross revenue nor margin. The upside lies in reducing churn and preserving both unit sales and profit margin for legacy voice and data services. At the moment, bundle customers are about twice as likely to be cable customers as telco customers. One reason for that is the fact that telcos have not had the ability to provide video entertainment services until recently. 

If telecom companies are able to provide fiber services to new access areas quickly, and market them effectively, the split of new bundled customers between telecom and  cable could widen to 63 percent and 29 percent respectively, CFI argues.

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