Commentary
Cable Outdoes Phone For New Broadband Connections
- by Jack Loechner , Staff Writer @mp_research, August 25, 2008
According to the Leichtman Research Group, the twenty largest cable and telephone providers in the US, representing about 94% of the market, acquired 887,000 net additional high-speed Internet subscribers in the second quarter of 2008. These top broadband providers now account for 65.1 million subscribers, with cable companies having 35.3 million broadband subscribers, and telephone companies having over 29.7 million subscribers.
Other broadband findings for the quarter include:
- The top cable companies added over 670,000 subscribers, representing 76% of the net broadband additions for the quarter versus the top telephone companies
- Overall, broadband additions in 2Q 2008 amounted to 51% of those in 2Q 2007, with cable having 85% as many additions as a year ago, and Telcos 23%
- The top cable broadband providers have a 54% share of the overall market, with a 5.6 million subscriber advantage over the top telephone companies
Bruce Leichtman, President, Leichtman Research Group, says "Net broadband additions in the quarter were the fewest of any quarter in the seven years LRG has been tracking the industry... the decline in additions was exacerbated by Verizon and AT&T's emphasis on selling higher speed FiOS and U-verse bundled services... "
Broadband Internet | Subscribers at end of 2Q 2008 | Net Adds in 2Q 2008 |
Cable Companies | ||
Comcast | 14,357,000 | 279,000 |
Time Warner | 8,125,000 | 201,000 |
Cox* | 3,885,000 | 40,000 |
Charter | 2,787,300 | 19,300 |
Cablevision | 2,395,000 | 52,000 |
Mediacom | 702,000 | 14,000 |
Insight | 424,600 | 12,400 |
Cable ONE | 361,269 | 4,726 |
RCN | 295,000 | 4,000 |
Other major private cable companies** | 2,000,000 | 45,000 |
Total Top Cable | 35,332,169 | 671,426 |
Telephone Companies | ||
AT&T | 14,693,000 | 46,000 |
Verizon | 8,330,000 | 54,000 |
Qwest | 2,732,000 | 31,000 |
Embarq | 1,364,000 | 24,000 |
Windstream | 934,300 | 23,300 |
CenturyTel | 607,000 | 21,000 |
Frontier | 559,300 | 16,280 |
FairPoint | 294,412 | (1,166) |
Cincinnati Bell | 229,000 | 1,100 |
Total Top Telephone Companies | 29,743,102 | 215,514 |
Total Broadband | 65,075,184 | 886,940 |
Sources: The Companies and Leichtman Research Group, Inc. | ||
* LRG estimate
** Includes LRG estimates for Bright House Networks and Suddenlink
For more information about LRG, please visit here.
Jack Loechner is the Editor of The Center for Media Research's daily Research Brief. You can reach him at jack@mediapost.com.