Different Quarter, Same Story: Cable Gets All the Net High Speed Access Account Gains

It is not yet clear whether U.S. tier-one telcos actually can reverse the cable operator domination of high speed access services.

"Over the past year, cable companies added more than 3.5 million broadband subscribers, accounting for 118 percent of the 2.995 million net broadband additions," said Bruce Leichtman, Leichtman Research Group president. Telco providers have had net broadband losses in five of the past six quarters.

In the first three quarters of 2016, cable companies added about 2,440,000 broadband subscribers, while telcos lost about 475,000 subscribers

Cable companies represented all of the net account growth in the third quarter of 2016 as well.

Broadband Internet	Subscribers at End of 3Q 2016	Net Adds in 3Q 2016
Cable Companies
Comcast	24,316,000	329,000
Charter	22,202,000	387,000
Altice	4,122,000	17,000
Mediacom	1,145,000	17,000
WOW (WideOpenWest)*	728,400	2,700
Cable ONE	510,573	2,256
Other Major Private Company**	4,765,000	20,000
Total Top Cable	57,788,973	774,956
Phone Companies
AT&T	15,618,000	(23,000)
Verizon	7,038,000	24,000
CenturyLink	5,950,000	(40,000)
Frontier^	4,404,000	(99,000)
Windstream	1,063,000	(12,800)
FairPoint	309,547	(1,893)
Cincinnati Bell	299,800	3,100
Total Top Phone Companies	34,682,347	(149,593)
Total Broadband	92,471,320	625,563

Source: Leichtman Research Group