The seventeen largest cable MSOs and telcos in the U.S., representing 94% of the market, tacked on 645,000 net additional broadband subs in the third quarter of 2015, an 8% dip versus the year-ago quarter, Leichtman Research Group noted in its latest crunch of the numbers.
Cable, once again, took the lion’s share. The top MSOs added 790,000 high-speed Internet subs in the period, a 134% boost versus the net additions from the year-ago quarter.
The telcos in the study shed 140,000 broadband subs, versus a net gain of 110,000. Boiled down further, AT&T and Verizon added 305,000 subs via U-verse and FiOS in Q3 alongside a net loss of 432,000 DSL subs, LRG said.
With both sides factored in, those top ISPs ended Q3 with 89.5 million subs, with cable accounting for about 54.3 million of them.
Through the first nine months of 2015, the top MSOs added 2.3 million broadband subs, whiel the telcos lost about 130,000, according to LRG.
“While major providers now account for nearly 90 million broadband subscribers in the US, top cable providers added subscribers at a faster pace over the past year than they did over the prior year,” said Bruce Leichtman, president and principal analyst for LRG, in a statement. “Over the past year, cable companies accounted for 103% of the 2.93 million net broadband additions.”
