Cable Again Takes Lion’s Share of Broadband Adds in Q2

The top U.S. cable operators continued to dominate the broadband landscape in Q2 2017, representing the bulk of net new subscribers added in the period, according to Leichtman Research Group.  

The fourteen largest MSOs and telcos, representing 95% of the market, added about 230,000 net additional high-speed Internet subs in Q2, LRG said, noting that broadband adds in the period were 107% of those in the year-ago period.

Those providers now have more than 94.1 million broadband subs -- 59.9 million with top MSOs and, 34.2 million with the nation’s top telcos.

The largest MSOs added about 460,000 broadband subs in Q2, while the top telcos lost 230,000, narrowed from a year-ago loss of 340,000.

Over the past year, top ISPs added 2.55 million broadband subscribers, down from 3 million over the prior year, LRG found.

“Cable companies added about 3.1 million broadband subscribers over the past year, while Telcos had net losses of about 550,000 broadband subscribers,” Bruce Leichtman, president and principal analyst for LRG, said in a statement. “At the end 2Q 2017, cable had a 64% market share vs. 36% for Telcos.  The broadband market share for cable is now at the highest level it has been since the first quarter of 2004.”