Cable giants still adding new broadband users

The U.S. broadband market isn’t yet saturated, but additional users are tending to sign up with the big cable companies.

In 2014, 3 million new broadband users signed up: 2.7 million with cable firms and the rest with AT&T and Verizon, whose high-speed U-Verse and FiOS broadband services compete successfully against cable — with upwards of 30 percent market share where these services are offered.

Overall, cable dominates broadband, with nearly 52 million broadband subscribers or about 60 percent of all broadband subscribers at any speed. If one uses the FCC’s 25 Mbps downstream/3 Mbps upstream definition, cable broadband has about 90 percent of subscribers.

Leichtman Research Group’s president Bruce Leichtman described the continual growth:

“While about four of every five U.S. households now get broadband at home, there were more broadband net additions in 2014 than in 2013. This was the first year-over-year increase in broadband net adds since 2006 over 2005.”

3 million added broadband from top providers in 2014 (Leichtman Research Group news release, Mar. 5, 2015)
 
Comcast, Time Warner Cable Add Most Broadband Users (Investors.com, Mar. 9, 2015)