There's No Evidence Comcast's New 'Network Investment' Is Because of Net Neutrality Repeal or Tax Cuts (vice.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: Comcast issued a statement last week claiming that the government's new tax plan and the end of net neutrality will directly result in a dramatic spike in Comcast's network investment and job creation plans. If you look at Comcast's capital investments over the past 12 months and calculate continued investment growth at current rates -- you'll find that Comcast was already on pace to spend more than $50 billion on investment over the next five years.

Journalists that could be bothered to take a closer look at Comcast's earnings discovered that the company's promise of $50 billion in investment over five years is something that would have occurred regardless of the net neutrality repeal or Comcast's shiny new tax cut. "In Q3 2017, the most recent quarter, Comcast's capital expenditures were $2.4 billion," noted Ars Technica's Jon Brodkin. "Continuing to spend at that rate, even if Comcast doesn't increase spending to account for inflation, would push Comcast to $9.6 billion a year or $48 billion over the next five years." Indeed; if you look at Comcast's capital investments over the past 12 months and calculate continued investment growth at current rates -- you'll find that Comcast was already on pace to spend more than $50 billion on investment over the next five years.

Comments

If we don't believe Comcast

[Anonymous Coward]

Should we make up stories and believe those instead?

Re:If we don't believe Comcast

[_Sharp'r_]

Yeah, Comcast is generally a lame company, but to say an official announcement by the decision maker about the reasons for a particular decision equals "no evidence" is quite a biased stretch, especially when the counter evidence is a guess by someone who wasn't involved in the decision.

So sure, Comcast was going to spend some money on infrastructure anyway. The article stretches to get $48 Billion and the press release says "spend well in excess of $50 billion" with more announcements coming in their January earnings report, so even at the most generous, there is still a gap there. The part of the same press release they skipped over of course was that Comcast also announced "special $1,000 bonuses to more than one hundred thousand eligible frontline and non-executive employees." in the same press release. If you read the press release, that's the part most specifically attributed to the tax cuts and the FCC rule change. The infrastructure plans read as an add-on, so this is mostly much ado about nothing. But hey, these "reporters" will do just about anything to be able to publish something they can cast into an anti-Trump narrative of some sort.

Re:If we don't believe Comcast

[Anonymous Coward]

Large tax breaks to corporations generally equate to those companies spending between 10 and 20% of the initial take on employees wages and bonus's. This is already known.

[citation needed]

Re:If we don't believe Comcast

[next_ghost]

Businesses aim to maximize profit. They do not set a profit cap and then try to extract it in the easiest way.

Corporate taxes are designed to encourage reinvesting profits (tax deductible) instead of shoveling them straight to the shareholders (not tax deductible). Lowering the corporate tax rate will result in less profit reinvesting and more shoveling to shareholders. But at least until the 2018 elections, there will be lots of PR hot air about investments, otherwise the GOP tax scam might get repealed before it even takes effect.

Motherboard and Ars

[Anonymous Coward]

Are both trying very hard to downplay any positive news and posit end-of-civilization hysteria on a daily basis all because of who is president.

Why are they still considered news sources any better than Breitbart and 4chan?

Re:Outcome

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a conservative, and I hate Comcast, support net neutrality. However I also support tax cuts for corps. I don't have any illusion that all their tax saving will help the CEO's more than the employee's or their customers. But the bottom line is that we have the highest corporate tax rate in the world. If you want to compete we need to lower that.

The USA ranks number 1 in prison incarceration, debt, and taxes. This is not a good thing.

I notice you were quick to snipe on Conservatives, but were you able to criticize your buddy Obama when he gave a huge bone to the corporate CEO's of the insurance companies under the pretense that he was helping poor people. The honest to god truth is there is no difference between Republicans and Democrats. they all support their corporate campaign donors. Conservatives and Liberals need to ban together, find common ground and stop supporting the party oligarchs.

Re:These numbers cannot be correct

[LordKronos]

Conventional Slashdot wisdom dictates that Comcast, and all monopoly internet ISPs, have not, do not, and will not invest money in infrastructure upgrades. The monopoly status means they can coast in a non-competitive environment with current network technology while nickel and diming everyone to death. So obviously wherever they got their information that Comcast is spending money on infrastructure is complete BS. It just doesn't fit the narrative.

Keyword being monopoly. Comcast has always done upgrades....in areas where they don't have a monopoly. I've got 3 choices for cable providers, and comcast has always done a good job of providing upgrades to have the fastest speed options available. But the problem is when they DO have a monopoly. I remember one of the stories that was here on slashdot years ago. Some town only had Comcast as an option, but Comcast wouldn't upgrade them beyond 10Mbps (this was a while ago, and I don't recall the exact numbers, so forgive me if it's off). Then the town decided to setup a community ISP with 100Mbps service and.....oh, what's that? Comcast is now busting ass to offer 100Mbps service in that area much sooner than the community ISP can be up and running? Wow, what a surprise!!!!!!

You don't honestly believe that, do you?

[rsilvergun]

you simply can't be that naive. Nobody is. The bonuses were already decided on long before the tax bill (which was surprisingly uncertain, but in the end passed because the Republican's donors made it clear that if it didn't they weren't getting any more money). They'll use the $1.5 trillion in new debt as an excuse for entitlement 'reform', meaning they'll pocket our social security and medicare money. We got sold out. All of us. Unless you've got a silver spoon in your mouth you're in for a rude, rude awakening when you're 65 and dying of a completely preventable disease.

Another NN article? (Not moaning)

[houghi]

What amazes me is how long we are already fighting this. And once it is gone, we will never be able to get it back.

Here an article about it : https://www.dailykos.com/story...
Not so much the content is interesting, but the date. December 26th, 2010. twothousand-fucking-ten. And even if it won't happen now and the next two precidency terms are Dems, the one after that will be Rep again and they will go for it again. They only need to succeed once. We can never fail.

So I am actually a bit happy to see those articles. It means there is still a bit of hope.