While cable operators saw a continuing trend of lost basic video subscribers last year, they added more broadband customers than the telcos over the same time frame.
According to the latest study by the Leichtman Research Group, cable operators added more than 2.3 million broadband subscribers last year compared with the telcos’ 1.1 million.
Overall, Leichtman Research Group (LRG) found that the 19 largest cable and telephone providers in the nation, which represent about 93 percent of the market, acquired 3.4 million net additional high-speed Internet subscribers in 2010.
For all of last year, the top cable operators netted 68 percent of the broadband adds, with Comcast still the largest ISP in the nation with 16.988 million subscribers, followed by AT&T with 16.31 million.
Annual net broadband additions in 2010 were 83 percent of the total in 2009.
The top broadband providers now account for 75.1 million subscribers, with cable companies having more than 41.5 million broadband subscribers and telephone companies having more than 33.5 million subscribers.
In the fourth quarter of 2010, cable and telephone providers added 840,000 broadband subscribers, with cable companies adding about 515,000 subscribers and phone companies adding about 325,000 subscribers in the quarter.
“At the end of 2010, the top broadband providers in the U.S. cumulatively had over 75 million subscribers,” said Bruce Leichtman, president and principal analyst for Leichtman Research Group. “Despite an increasingly high level of broadband penetration, the top broadband providers still added 83 percent as many subscribers in 2010 as in 2009.”
Cable operators have the speed advantage over the telcos due to their DOCSIS 3.0 rollouts, but the impact of DOCSIS 3.0 is hard to judge since most of the cable operators, except for Time Warner Cable, don’t break out the take rates on their wideband tiers.
In its earnings report last month, Comcast did say that its fourth-quarter data revenue increased 10.7 percent, due largely to rate increases and more subscribers opting for faster data tiers.
Cable operators in general have seen their bundle strategies pay off, with more subscribers opting to take two or more of their triple-play services, which has also helped boost their data subscriber numbers.
|
Broadband Internet provider |
Subscribers at end of Q4 2010 |
Net adds in 2010 |
|
Cable companies |
||
|
Comcast |
16,988,000 |
1,058,000 |
|
Time Warner |
9,803,000 |
515,000 |
|
Cox* |
4,370,000 |
170,000 |
|
Charter |
3,246,100 |
206,700 |
|
Cablevision |
2,653,000 |
85,000 |
|
Mediacom |
838,000 |
60,000 |
|
Suddenlink* |
828,000 |
76,200 |
|
Insight* |
527,000 |
25,500 |
|
Cable One |
425,402 |
32,570 |
|
Other major private cable companies** |
1,870,000 |
73,100 |
|
Total top cable |
41,548,502 |
2,302,070 |
|
Telephone companies |
||
|
AT&T |
16,310,000 |
521,000 |
|
Verizon |
8,392,000 |
232,000 |
|
Qwest |
2,914,000 |
102,000 |
|
CenturyLink |
2,394,000 |
158,000 |
|
Frontier |
1,697,167 |
665 |
|
Windstream |
1,302,500 |
79,300 |
|
FairPoint* |
288,500 |
(6,500) |
|
Cincinnati Bell |
252,300 |
8,300 |
| Total top telephone companies | 33,550,867 | 1,094,765 |
|
|
||
|
Total broadband |
75,099,369 |
3,396,835 |
| Sources: The companies and Leichtman Research Group. * LRG estimate ** Includes LRG estimates for Bright House and RCN |
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