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Cable Outpaces Telcos On Broadband
Cable system operators continue to beat telephone companies when it comes to signing on new broadband/Internet subscribers.
Cable operators grew 5.5%, or 2.3 million customers, in 2010 to now reach 41.5 million subscribers -- grabbing a 55% market share. Telephone companies increased 3.3% or 1.1 million to 33.5 million, about a 45% market share.
Durham, NH-based Leichtman Research Group looked at 19 of the U.S.'s largest cable and telephone companies, which represent about 93% of the entire broadband/Internet market.
The top broadband providers now account for 75.1 million subscribers at the end of 2010. Overall, 4.5% new broadband customers were added from cable and telephone company providers in 2010 over 2009, or 3.4 million.
The two biggest cable operators, Comcast and Time Warner Cable, continue to make the best gains -- growing 1.058 million customers and 515,000 customers respectively. Comcast now has 16.98 million broadband customers; Time Warner has 9.80 million.
Telephone companies AT&T and Verizon are the biggest telco providers of broadband service. AT&T took on 521,000 new customers in 2010, now at 16.31 million; Verizon added 232,000 to now reach 8.4 million.
Bruce Leichtman, president and principal analyst for Leichtman Research Group, stated: "Despite an increasingly high level of broadband penetration, the top broadband providers still added 83% as many subscribers in 2010 as in 2009."
