Comcast Confronts Bundle of Trouble

On the broadband front, Comcast turned in a strong report card, blowing by most estimates without resorting to price cuts to keep apace with the telcos' digital subscriber line or DSL services. For the third quarter, Comcast added 437,000 cable modem subscribers giving it about a 20% penetration rate, or about one-out-of-five homes in its markets.

But the industry is changing rapidly as broadband connections open an entirely new market for low-cost operators like Skype, Vonage, Google (GOOG Quote) and Yahoo! (YHOO Quote) to offer customers free calling and cheap videos.

This new threat has helped place a gloomy outlook over the big phone and cable sectors.

Comcast shares, which have fallen 15% since mid-August, were down $1.63 to $27.17 in midday trading Thursday.