NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Now that Comcast has agreed to drop its unsolicited takeover bid for Walt Disney Co., what's next for Comcast and its cable rivals?

The end of the Disney saga removes a significant concern that was plaguing Comcast's stock. Shares had fallen nearly 12 percent since the company announced its bid for the House of Mouse in February. Other cable stocks fell in sympathy.

But now investors can get back to focusing on operating results. Shares of Comcast (CMCSK: Research, Estimates), Cox Communications (COX: Research, Estimates) and Cablevision (CVC: Research, Estimates) traded up in a down market on Wednesday morning after Comcast reported strong first-quarter results. Although earnings came in lower than expected, sales beat Wall Street forecasts thanks to strong digital cable and high-speed Internet subscriber gains.

And since Comcast is the nation's largest cable company, investors appeared to be betting that its good news is a harbinger of healthy growth for other cable firms as well.

"Some of the trends we saw from Comcast should be reflected in the results of other cable operators," said Jonathan Atkin, an analyst with RBC Capital Markets.

That's encouraging since cable companies have been coming under increased competitive pressure from satellite firms DirecTV (DTV: Research, Estimates) and EchoStar (DISH: Research, Estimates) on the video side of their business and from phone companies like Verizon (VZ: Research, Estimates), SBC (SBC: Research, Estimates) and BellSouth (BLS: Research, Estimates), which offer digital subscriber line (DSL) Internet access.

No more bad reception? Cable stocks took a beating since Comcast's bid for Disney was announced. Now that Comcast has pulled the plug, will stocks head higher? Company  Price change*  Cablevision  -15%  Charter Communications  -3%  Comcast  -12%  Cox Communications  -9%  Insight Communications  -14%  Mediacom Communications  -11%  Time Warner  -6%   * price change since Feb. 10, 2004  Source:  Thomson/Baseline

Time Warner, which owns the nation's second largest cable company, will report its first-quarter results after the bell Wednesday and Cox is scheduled to release its first-quarter numbers before the market opens Thursday.

David Mantell, an analyst with Loop Capital Markets, said he expects Cox to also report strong digital cable and high-speed subscriber growth but that he's concerned about Time Warner (TWX: Research, Estimates) since he said its digital cable results in the fourth quarter were a bit weak. (Time Warner is the parent company of CNN/Money.)

However, Time Warner and Cox may have some good news about another new product, phone services over the Web, a technology known as voice over Internet protocol (VoIP).

Cox and Time Warner have aggressively rolled out VoIP services to many of its customers in an attempt to steal business from local phone companies.

Related stories • Comcast drops Disney offer • Adelphia feels pressure to sell • Comcast bids for Disney • Don't pull the plug on cable

American Technology Research analyst Rob Sanderson said he expects both companies to give some enthusiastic comments about VoIP subscriber growth during their respective conference calls.

VoIP, while just a small portion of cable companies' business, has the potential to be a profitable business. "This is the next leg of growth for cable companies," Atkin said. "That's where they have minimal share today and can gain rapidly."

But that won't be the only avenue of growth for cable companies, analysts said. With Disney out of the picture, Comcast's attentions will likely turn to Adelphia, the bankrupt cable firm that put itself up for sale earlier this month.

Comcast said during its conference call Wednesday that it would be interested in buying some of Adelphia's cable systems. There has been speculation that Time Warner and Cox are also interested in purchasing all or some assets of Adelphia.

But analysts said investors probably would greet the news of an Adelphia sale as a positive as opposed to a cause for concern, as was the case with Comcast's bid for Disney.

YOUR E-MAIL ALERTS Comcast Satellite and Cable Services Cox Communications Incorporated Time Warner or Create your own Manage alerts | What is this?

For one thing, a buyout of Adelphia wouldn't be coming out of the blue. The company publicly said it is shopping itself.

"It's widely anticipated that one of the big three cable companies is going to acquire some or all of Adelphia's assets so investors would be caught less off guard," Atkin said.

And Sanderson said the problem with the Comcast-Disney bid was that it was tough to justify a deal marrying distribution and content, adding that investors had soured on similar mergers, including those between AOL and Time Warner, and between Vivendi and Universal.

On the other hand, most of the major cable companies have experienced a strong track record of increasing their subscriber base by scooping up other cable companies. Most recently, Comcast has done that through its purchase of AT&T's broadband assets. That deal vaulted it to the top spot in the cable business.

"Cable has a long history of growth from successful consolidation of cable systems," said Sanderson. "Investors will be more willing to embrace things that have worked."

Analysts quoted in this story do not own shares of the companies mentioned and their firms have no investment banking ties to them.