After Time Warner Cable (NYSE:TWC) completed its divorce from Comcast Cl' A' (NASDAQ:CMCSA) and acquisition of Adelphia, the company had a chance to start fresh with 3.5 million cable subscribers, rather than repeat the mistakes of the past that have brought them a reputation for poor service. Unfortunately, they seem to have pissed away that opportunity.

According to a report on Bloomberg.com today, 90,000 of those customers have already changed their channel from Time Warner. The company admits that transferring customers to their network caused overloads in their cable lines and the consequent problems with TV, Internet and telephone connections.

This news comes in advance of tomorrow's earnings report, when analysts surveyed by Thompson expect the company to report an EPS of $.24, down slightly from the previous quarter. Since the WSJ (subscription requires) reports some analysts expected a strong performance by TWC would bolster the earnings of the mother ship, Time Warner, the subscriber problems are doubly problematical.

In the meantime, TWC's largest rival, Comcast Corp., is projecting a 12% growth rate through 2009 and up to $1 billion in new revenue via its online advertising sector, Comcast Interactive Media.

Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) seems to sell just about every possible category of retail goods under the sun these days, as the venerable online e-tailer has expanded from books only to car parts, electronics, groceries and even pet supplied. With that said, most of these categories are products. Well, how about services? Why doesn't Amazon.com sell them? Or at least, allow third parties to sell services at the website of the world's largest online retail shopping site?
Comcast (NASDAQ: CMCSA) has announced that it will begin selling its high-speed Internet service at Amazon.com starting now. It's possible that Comcast is not explaining its high-speed Internet offerings at its own website correctly or with the right amount of selling expertise. No, that can't be it. Is the large telecom company wanting to try and persuade customers of competitive services to switch to its own service? Perhaps.

Is Comcast wanting to get its brand and service offerings in front of as many eyeballs as possible and play the game of averages? Eureka! Amazon.com offers that opportunity and tens of thousands of larger and smaller companies have already figured this out -- but almost all of them sell "products", not "services". So, if you're already on a high-speed connection and are browsing for Christmas gifts or other holiday gifts at Amazon.com, you might be persuaded to change your service to Comcast -- and the fishhook is this: the company is presenting customers who sign up for its service on Amazon.com with a $100 Amazon.com gift certificate that is valid through the 2006 holiday season. Hook, line and sinker.