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Those margins are misleading because they're _multi_ service operators, and accounting standards require that you can only list direct costs. Revenue is easy:

Those margins are misleading because they're _multi_ service operators, and accounting standards require that you can only list direct costs. Revenue is easy: how much did you take in for video? phone? Internet access? Costs are harder because you can only include business line direct costs. Since the cable plant is used by voice, video and data services it's not a direct cost of any of them. Same thing with the service vehicle fleet, call centers, etc. Most things get saddled in "administration" categories and obscure the true cost of providing the service. As a company overall, their margins been hovering around 8-12%.

lazerpants 6y ago
That was margin derived from operating revenue, it includes SG&A for the entire division. Do you have a source stating otherwise?
maxerickson 6y ago
They report all of the services using the cable as a single segment of their business. Of course they are attributing operating costs to that segment. Like 40% of the segment cost is "programming" (TV), so the internet part of the service likely has even better operating margin than the segment overall (basically, slightly higher revenue than TV with considerably lower costs).