Cable broadband infrastructure spending fell from 2014’s numbers by 3 percent in 2015 ($1.74 billion), according to a new report from SNL Kagan. Competitive pricing coupled with a rise in software licenses reportedly helped push down the average price per downstream channel.

Cable operators took advantage of low downstream channel prices and boosted shipments of converged cable access platforms (CCAP) to what are said to be record levels. Total DOCSIS downstream channels jumped 41 percent for the full year to top 6 million, according to SNL Kagan estimates.

ARRIS closed out the year as the global revenue leader, holding 53 percent of total revenue among providers of cable broadband infrastructure, according to the report. SNL Kagan says that ARRIS benefitted from the focus of its primary North American customers, including Comcast and Time Warner, on dramatically increasing throughput to remain competitive with Verizon, AT&T, CenturyLink, Google Fiber and other ISPs.

“The imminent availability of DOCSIS 3.1 linecards and full-spectrum channels won’t slow the continued purchase and deployment of current DOCSIS 3.0 channels as cable operators must continue to increase throughput to reduce the likelihood of churn among their broadband subscribers,” Jeff Heynen, senior research analyst for SNL Kagan, says.