FCC releases semi-annual telephone and Internet stats

The FCC’s Wireline Competition Bureau recently released its semi-annual detailed reports on local telephone competition and Internet access as of December 31, 2013.

Broadband

At this point, cable leads in wireline Internet subscriptions:

•    54 million cable
•    31 million DSL
•    7.7 million fiber to the premise

But there are twice as many wireless as wired Internet connections
•    198 million wireless Internet connections
•    96 million wireline Internet connections

When it comes to speed, the vast majority of cable and fiber subscribers connect at 10 Mbps or more, but less than one-third of DSL subscribers do.  A full 57 million wireless subscribers connect at 10 Mbps, compared to 9 million DSL subscribers. One-quarter of all Internet access subscribers connect at speeds below 3 Mbps, which is the FCC definition for broadband.

The percentage of the population with a wired broadband connection varies considerably, from the high of 81 percent in Hawaii, 80 percent in New Jersey and 79 percent in Massachusetts to  lows of 31 and 32 percent in Mississippi and Iowa, respectively.

Voice Telephony

Subscribers continue to leave traditional copper telephone service at a rapid rate. Over the past 11 years, telecoms’ switched subscribers dropped from 190 million to 85 million today – with 38 million dropping switched service in the past three years.  Only 66 million of those subscribers purchase service from the incumbent provider.

In the same last three years, the number of VoIP subscribers increased from 29 million to 47. Most of these VoIP subscribers purchase a voice/broadband  bundle.  And while most VoIP providers are cable companies, there were 9 million VoIP subscribers at the incumbent local exchange carriers (representing 12 percent of local exchange carriers’ voice subscribers).

The number of wireless subscribers at the end of 2013 was 311 million, up from 141 million in 2002. In other words, there are more than three times as many wireless subscribers as wireline subscribers. Moreover, almost two-thirds of young people have switched to wireless-only telephony.

Local competition report (FCC report, Oct. 2014)

Internet access report (FCC report, Oct. 2014)

FCC releases new telephone and Internet data (FCC news release, Oct. 16, 2014)

The latest on local telecom-broadband competition (Speed Matters, Aug. 24, 2014)