Comcast Business tailors new offering for home workers

In response to a pandemic that has forced millions of people to work from home, Comcast Business has introduced a new offering that provides dedicated, enterprise-grade broadband service along with a streamlined, company-paid billing structure.

That new offering, called Comcast Business At Home, is now available across the majority of Comcast's service footprint, according to Christian Nascimento, VP of product management at Comcast Business.

He said the new offering is primarily focused on Comcast's small and midsized business segments and builds on a teleworker offering that Comcast Business already offers to large enterprise customers.

Figure 1: Comcast Businesses new 'At Home' offering enables small and midsized commercial customers add dedicated service lines for their remote workforce.

"Comcast Business At Home seeks to fill that gap outside of the enterprise space," Nascimento said, noting that the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the need for more flexibility for at-home work environments across the various commercial segments Comcast serves.

Like its regular SMB product, Comcast Business At Home provides a dedicated connection free of data caps and usage limits via a dedicated router that runs outside the operator's residential service. However, the new offering also enables an SMB to purchase additional lines for remote workers directly and to pay for services with a bill that combines their on-premises services with the additional home-based services.

"What we're hearing from our customers is that they want to have the option or ability to pay for a dedicated broadband line in the home for some of their key employees or key executives or whatever the situation may call for," Nascimento said.

The new offering also ties in other features such as the ability to route calls from their business to any device and cybersecurity tools that protect devices connected to the home business network from malicious threats.

Comcast Business is currently implementing professional installs for the new At Home product to ensure there's no disruption of the customer's residential connection, but is also pursuing new installation options.

Comcast Business is introducing the new option as the commercial services sector comes under pressure during a pandemic that has caused businesses to shut down offices and venues and support a remote workforce.

Speaking on the company's Q1 2020 call in late April, Comcast Cable president and CEO David Watson acknowledged that the cable op's SMB segment could be in store for some sporadic times as some customers need to pause or turn off service while others that remain open seek to upgrade to faster tiers.

"The fundamentals of SMB are still very good," Watson said then, noting that Comcast is still a "challenger" in that category against incumbent telcos.

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— Jeff Baumgartner, Senior Editor, Light Reading