High Speed Access Now is the Anchor Service for Telcos and Cable TV

GVTC, Smithson Valley, Texas rural telephone cooperative, now sells more high speed access  accounts than voice accounts, much as cable TV companies now sell more high speed access than video accounts.

AT GVTC, Internet access customers now outnumber telephone accounts by five percent based on sales figures for the first quarter of 2015. GVTC telephone accounts are down 2.3 percent during the same period.

At the end of 2014, the largest U.S. cable TV operators had about 52 million high speed access accounts in service. At the end of 2014, those same firms had some 49 million linear video customers.

In its first quarter of 2015, Comcast Internet access revenues grew 10.7 percent while business services grew 21.4 percent.

Year over year, Comcast gained 407,000 high speed Internet access customers and 77,000 voice customers and lost 8,000 video customers.

In other words, not only does the “new” Internet access business represent more customers, it also is the fastest-growing consumer service. Video subscribers actually are shrinking.