Comcast is proud of its Performance Starter stand-alone broadband service, said Sena Fitzmaurice, the company's vice president of government communications. Comcast and the FCC were able to address the issue "cooperatively and constructively in a consensual manner," she said in an email.

"Comcast has incorporated the extensive commitments and conditions from the NBCUniversal transaction into the DNA of our business practices, including the commitment to offer stand-alone broadband Internet," she added. "As is often the case with services associated with government orders, the FCC had questions on how the service might have been rolled out in a different or even better way."

The consent decree requires Comcast to train its customer service representatives and retail sales people on the Performance Starter service. It also requires Comcast to devote a Web page to the stand-alone service and list the service on its product lists given to customers. The decree also requires a major advertising promotion of the service.

The IDG News Service