» Cable Companies Make Slight Comeback in Battle with DSLTelecommunications Industry News

Telecom News Editorials Reports Glossary

Cable Companies Make Slight Comeback in Battle with DSL

7:30 am on November 10, 2006 | Category: Business, Internet, Telecom Services

U.S. cable providers made a slight comeback in the broadband internet market during the third quarter, according to Information Gatekeepers Inc., a research firm which had previously predicted that DSL would overtake cable.

IGI analyst, Clifford Holliday, says heâ€™s sticking by that prediction, but says it will happen more slowly than initially anticipated, with cable modems continuing to lead the high-speed internet market until late 2007.

â€œThis is the first big quarter theyâ€™ve had at all in two years,â€ Holliday said of the surge in cable broadband subscriptions. â€œThey have really been down compared to where they were for a while. They kind of popped back and took the lead. This is the first time that Comcast has been able to be the leader in high-speed growth in a quarter in about two years.â€

Comcast added a net total of 536,000 cable internet customers in the three month period that ended on September 30, compared to just 305,000 in the second quarter. The cable industry as a whole managed to add 1,026,900 customers in the third quarter, but still fell slightly short of the DSL industryâ€™s 1,269,000 subscriber additions.

As of September 30, DSL lines represented 45% of Americaâ€™s broadband internet market, up from 34% in 2002. Cable modem penetration meanwhile, is slowly but surely declining, and currently stands at 47.3% of the total market, or 51 million lines.

Telecommunications Industry News