Comcast discusses VoIP and high-speed Internet access (CMCSA 2Q05 conf call quotes)

The cable operators disclosed plans to expand their voice telephony market share a while back, and are now proceeding with the roll-outs. Comcast (ticker: CMCSA), slower than the others, is gearing up for scale voice-over-IP (VoIP) deployments in the latter half of the year. Despite that, the stocks of the Baby Bells, which derive all their profits from voice telephony and yellow-pages advertising, haven't been hit hard. Perhaps that's due to the market's positive view of the Bell's aggressive pricing for DSL service.  (Full disclosure: I'm short Verizon stock, and own LEAP puts on SBC, Verizon and Bell South.) Here are comments by CEO Brian Roberts and CFO John Alchin about high-speed Internet access and VoIP services from Comcast's Q2 conference call. Note that high-speed Internet access average revenue per subscriber actually rose, despite the Bells' DSL pricing strategy:

Brian Roberts, CEO:

In high-speed Internet, we have the same strategy: differentiation and innovation. We just recently increased our speed to what we believe is the market leading 6 megabits, and with our higher speed service 8 megabits, and we are continuously adding valuable enhancements and features. …We are on track to meet all of the goals and guidance around the digital voice rollout that we previously stated…

John Alchin, Co-CFO:

High-speed data revenues increased almost 29% to 982 million, reflecting growth in subscribers and strong average revenue per subscriber of $43.34. This is a $0.53 sequential increase and roughly consistent with our second quarter ARPU of 43.50 from last year. We ended the second quarter with more than 7.7 million high-speed data customers, adding more than 297,000 in the quarter. Year-to-date net adds for high-speed data are essentially the same as last year's at just north of 700,000. We added nearly 15,000 Comcast digital voice customers in the second quarter, as we rolled out our service to several new markets late in the quarter. We are on track with CDV rollouts and expect CDV net adds to accelerate in the second half…

(Quotes are from the CCBN StreetEvents transcript.)

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