Comcast 2009 Annual Report Download - page 23

Table of Contents
17
Comcast 2009 Annual Report on Form 10-
K
Item 1B: Unresolved Staff Comments
None.
Item 2: Properties
We believe that substantially all of our physical assets are in
good operating condition.
Cable
Our principal physical assets consist of operating plant and
equipment, including signal receiving, encoding and decoding
devices, headends and distribution systems, and equipment
at or near our customers’ homes. The signal receiving
apparatus typically includes a tower, antenna, ancillary
electronic equipment and earth stations for reception of
satellite signals. Headends consist of electronic equipment
necessary for the reception, amplification and modulation of
signals and are located near the receiving devices. Our
distribution system consists primarily of coaxial and fiber-
optic cables, lasers, routers, switches and related electronic
equipment. Our cable plant and related equipment generally
are connected to utility poles under pole rental agreements
with local public utilities, although in some areas the
distribution cable is buried in underground ducts or trenches.
Customer premises equipment (“CPE”) consists primarily of
set-top boxes and cable modems. The physical components
of cable systems require periodic maintenance and
replacement.
Our signal reception sites, primarily antenna towers and
headends, and microwave facilities, are located on owned
and leased parcels of land, and we own or lease space on
the towers on which certain of our equipment is located. We
own most of our service vehicles.
Our high-speed Internet network consists of fiber-optic cables
owned or leased by us and related equipment. We also
operate regional data centers with equipment that is used to
provide services (such as e-mail, news and web services) to
our high-speed Internet customers and phone service
customers. In addition, we maintain two network operations
centers with equipment necessary to monitor and manage
the status of our high-speed Internet network.
We own or lease buildings throughout the country that
contain call centers, service centers, warehouses and
administrative space. We also own a building that houses our
media center. The media center contains equipment that we
own or lease, including equipment related to network
origination, global transmission via satellite and terrestrial
fiber optics, a broadcast studio, mobile and post-production
services, interactive television services and streaming
distribution services.
Programming
Television studios and business offices are the principal
physical assets of our Programming business. We own or
lease the television studios and business offices of our
Programming business.
Other
A large, multipurpose arena that we own is the principal
physical operating asset of our other businesses.
As of December 31, 2009, we leased locations for our
corporate offices in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, as well as
numerous business offices, warehouses and properties
housing divisional information technology operations
throughout the country.
Item 3: Legal Proceedings
Refer to Item 8, Note 17 to our consolidated financial
statements included in this Annual Report on Form 10-K.
Item 4: Submission of Matters to a Vote of
Security Holders
Not applicable.