Game Over: Comcast and Amazon!

The game is over and cable wins.

Comcast may fear competition and bill people for services that they did not receive, but they do have a $6B CLEC business. Most carriers can’t say that.

Now the broadband game is changing. Amazon is a master agent now!

Nevermind GeoQuote or MasterStream! Amazon is now selling Comcast in its own cable store.

Many companies – XO, Cbeyond, Telovations, Microcorp, Fonality, Panterra and more – have tried to sell through a distributor – either Tech Data or Ingram Micro – to a zero result. You have no concept of how hard that is until you make the attempt. Smashing your head on a wall isn’t just an analogy; it is the reality!

If this is as frictionless as the usual 1-click shopping, look out T1 Slingers, because the paperwork alone is a hurdle.

Amazon is even offering their own customer service as an incentive to buy through Amazon, like agents do.

TD Mobility sells mobile devices, tablets, iPhones and cell service from the Big 4. It was never able to turn that into a really successful master agency that VARs used. Some of that is due to the hurdles in place to sell cell service and this ugly thing called charge backs (that cellular companies are infamous for).

You would think selling VoIP through a store would be easy. Pick the device(s), add service, add phone number, e-sig here and enter credit card. Oh, right! Only Panterra Networks uses e-signature. Birch likes to use a 19-page order form for a fax line. Progressive.

I will be watching this closely as it should change the way TV and broadband are bought.

This may turn out to be more like Google Fiber – a nice idea that scared the stuffing out of the Duopoly to roll out Gigabit everywhere despite only pulling in 110K subscribers.

Amazon Cable Store here.

Amazon is also doing VoIP Install!! (see here)

Tags: amazon, broadband, cable, cableco, comcast, master agency, sales, selling, tech data
Related tags: cable store, amazon, service, cable, comcast, store