U.S. broadband subscriber growth flat for 2013

While the U.S. market experienced the first-ever net loss of basic video subscribers, the number of broadband subscribers continued to grow, with a net addition of 2.6 million new customers.

Cable companies are still signing up the vast majority of new subscribers, according to company results aggregated by Leichtman Research Group (LRG).

The video market is far closer to the saturation point than the broadband market. The 2013 financial results from service providers presented the evidence that cord cutting is real, but the numbers, while measurable, remain so small as to be negligible – there was a net loss of only 105,000 video subscribers in the U.S. market.

The evidence suggests that most people get over-the-top (OTT) video to complement video services from traditional, facilities-based video providers, and that OTT viewing is supplemental. The assumption has been, and continues to be, that the OTT phenomenon is helping to fuel growth.

Analysts continue to only speculate about whether broadband subscriber growth is being fueled by viewers who are watching subscribing only to broadband-based, OTT services, and who have never had a subscription with a traditional, facilities-based service provider.

The seventeen largest cable and telephone providers in the U.S., representing about 93 percent of the market, acquired over 2.6 million net additional high-speed Internet subscribers in 2013. Annual net broadband additions in 2013 were 95 percent of the total in 2012.

These top broadband providers now account for 84.3 million subscribers, with cable companies having 49.3 million broadband subscribers, and telephone companies having 35.0 million subscribers.

Other findings include:

The top cable companies netted 82 percent of the broadband additions in 2013, compared to 88 percent of the broadband additions in 2012
The top cable companies added nearly 2.2 million broadband subscribers in 2013 – 89 percent of the total net additions for the top cable companies in 2012
Comcast added about 1.3 million broadband subscribers in 2013 – accounting for 49 percent of the total net additions for the top providers in the year
The top telephone providers added 480,000 broadband subscribers in 2013 – 146 percent of the total net additions for the top telephone companies in 2012
AT&T and Verizon added 3.3 million fiber subscribers (via U-verse and FiOS) in 2013, while having a net loss of 3.05 million DSL subscribers. U-verse and FiOS broadband subscribers now account for 47 percent of Telco broadband subscribers – up from 29 percentat the end of 2011.

“At the end of 2013, the top broadband providers in the US cumulatively had over 84.3 million subscribers, adding 2.6 million subscribers in the past year,” said Bruce Leichtman, president and principal analyst for LRG. “With top Telco providers focused on upgrading customers from DSL to fiber broadband services, cable providers accounted for over 80 percent of the net broadband adds in 2013.”

Broadband Internet	Subscribers at end of 2013	Net Adds in 2013
*Cable Companies*
Comcast	20,662,000	1,296,000
Time Warner	11,606,000	211,000
Charter	4,640,000	371,000
Cablevision	2,780,000	17,000
Suddenlink	1,059,500	57,400
Mediacom	965,000	50,000
WOW (WideOpenWest)*	740,000	31,000
Cable ONE	472,631	13,396
Other major private cable companies**	6,385,000	115,000
Total Top Cable	49,310,131	2,161,796
*Telephone Companies*
AT&T	16,425,000	35,000
Verizon	9,015,000	220,000
CenturyLink	5,991,000	140,000
Frontier^	1,836,000	112,000
Windstream	1,170,900	(43,600)
FairPoint	329,766	4,789
Cincinnati Bell	268,400	9,000
Total Top Telephone Companies	35,036,066	477,189
Total Broadband	84,346,197	2,638,985