Comcast
Residents and businesses in the Houston area’s northern suburbs will soon be able to buy high-speed internet service from Comcast, which says it will install more than 1,000 miles of fiber infrastructure this year in Grimes, Liberty, Montgomery and Waller counties. facility.
Philadelphia-based Comcast, one of several Houston-area cable and internet providers, announced last week that it will invest more than $265 million to bring its Xfinity network to Cleveland, Conroe, Hempstead, Communities such as Montgomery, Navasota and Porter. Comcast said the expansion will reach more than 100,000 potential new residential and commercial customers by the end of the year, including about 20,000 customers in Conroe, about 40 miles north of Houston.
“We are expanding our fiber highways and are experiencing significant growth,” Jose Espinel, senior vice president of Comcast’s Texas region, said in a release. “By building the best broadband infrastructure today, we are ensuring the economic prosperity of these communities tomorrow.”
Comcast’s broadband expansion is expected to be profitable for the company, said Mark Vena, a former Compaq Computer Corp. executive in Houston who is now CEO and principal analyst at SmartTech Research in California. He called this a “huge renewal opportunity” for Comcast but said the company is playing catch-up with some rivals on fiber optic infrastructure, which has become the industry standard.
AT&T, another well-known provider in the Houston area, said it spent more than $1.3 billion in the region from 2020-22 to expand its wireless and wireline network infrastructure. The company also said it plans to reach “hundreds of thousands more locations over the next few years, with the goal of bringing fiber to every home in the Houston metro area.”
Houston-based Ezee Fiber, one of the smaller companies providing fiber optic telecommunications services, announced in November that it would invest $200 million to expand its network in Fort Bend County to the city’s southwest.
“I’m glad Comcast is finally starting to address this issue,” Weiner said. “I think they’re way behind the eight ball.”
Comcast said its broadband expansion outside Houston is part of a $3 billion investment in Texas over the past three years. AT&T said it invested nearly $7.6 billion in fiber infrastructure across the state from 2020-22.
Jeff Baumgartner, senior editor at trade publication Light Reading, said Comcast has been particularly “aggressive” in expanding its network into adjacent markets where it already has service.
“They must have found locations around Houston where they can expand their network and extend service to new areas, and they need fiber to provide service,” Baumgartner said. “They tend to do a lot of research on where they want to build. There’s something that tells them, ‘It makes sense to build here based on the current level of competition,’ and get a good return.”