The Cable Industry Is Absolutely Dominating American Broadband Cable providers continue to dominate American broadband thanks in large part to spotty deployment of next-generation broadband by American telcos. According to the latest data by Leichtman Research Group, the nation's cable broadband providers added 2.7 million broadband subscribers in 2017 or about 83% of all net additions for the broadband industry last year. In contrast, the nation's top "phone" companies (AT&T, Verizon, Windstream, CenturyLink, Frontier) lost about 625,000 subscribers last year -- similar to a loss of about 600,000 subscribers in 2016.

"The top broadband providers in the US added nearly 4.8 million net broadband subscribers over the past two years," said Bruce Leichtman, president and principal analyst for Leichtman Research Group. "The top cable companies accounted for 130% of the net broadband additions in 2017, following 122% of the net adds in 2016." While Leichtman oddly can't be bothered to explain what's driving this phenomenon, it's relatively simple: telcos aren't spending enough money upgrading their networks to next-generation broadband. Among the major telcos, AT&T's the only one seriously upgrading to fiber at any scale, and even their coverage remains spotty in "launched" markets. Verizon has long since frozen FiOS expansion to focus on slinging ads at Millennials (poorly), Frontier is teetering on the cusp of bankruptcy thanks to managerial incompetence, and Windstream and CenturyLink continue to only upgrade to fiber in highly-selective areas. The end result: a greater cable broadband monopoly than ever before across huge swaths of the country, thanks to numerous telcos that can't even provide the FCC's minimal definition of broadband (25 Mbps down, 3 Mbps up). That reduced telco competition has reduced pressure on all ISPs to improve customer service and lower prices, and it's help drive the deployment of arbitrary, punitive and unnecessary usage caps and overage fees. And while next-generation wireless and low orbit satellite broadband are seen as looming panaceas for this competitive gridlock, the latter remains unproven and the former still suffers from its own monopoly problem on the backhaul and special access end, ensuring prices remain high. The amount of government cronyism we're seeing at the state and federal level (exemplified by the recent attack on net neutrality) also means breaking cable's monopoly is going to be a steep uphill climb for the forseeable future. With neither adult regulatory oversight nor competition to keep cable in line, history With neither adult regulatory oversight nor competition to keep cable in line, history repeatedly shows us that cable giants like Charter and Comcast will only double down on most of their worst tendencies, whether that's net neutrality violations, abysmal customer service, skyrocketing rates and hidden fees , or the slow but steady expansion of arbitrary, punitive and often-anti-competitive usage caps







News Jump Comcast Shuts Off Internet for Subs Who Were Sold Service Illegally; AT&T, Verizon Team To Stop T-Mobile 5G; + more news California Defends Its Net Neutrality Law; AT&T's Traffic Up 20% Despite Data Traffic Actually Being Down; + more news Are The Comcast-Charter X1 Talks Dead In The Water?; AT&T May Offer Phone Plans With Ads For Discounts; + more news Europe's Top Court: Net Neutrality Rules Bar Zero Rating; ViacomCBS To Rebrand CBS All Access As Paramount+; + more news Verizon To Buy Reseller TracFone For $7B; 5G Not The Competitive Threat To Cable Many Thought It Would Be; + more news MS.Wants Records From AT&T On $300M Project; Google Fiber Outages In Austin, Houston, Other Texan Cities; + more news States With The Biggest Decreases In Speed; AT&T Hopes You'll Forget Its Fight Against Accurate Maps; + more news AT&T's CEO Has A Familiar $olution To US Broadband Woes; EarthLink Files Suit Against Charter; + more news 5G Doesn't Live Up To Hype, AT&T's 5G Slower Than Its 4G; Cord-Cutting Now In 37% of Broadband Households; + more news FCC Cited False Broadband Data Despite Warnings; ZTE, Huawei Replacement Cost Is $1.87B, But Only $1B Allocated; + more ---------------------- this week last week most discussed

Most recommended from 28 comments



Ut98Ex

join:2012-07-11

Georgetown, TX 1 edit 20 recommendations Ut98Ex Member Craig Moffett anyone? and wasn't Craig the one that kept breathlessly harping about how telcos were doing a great job of "saving" money by not deploying fiber to the home and instead deploying the crappy uverse solution?



This game that wall street plays is a dangerous one of rewarding short term profits at the expense of long term growth and profitability. Which other industry will be the next to go into a monopoly and/or decay because wall street keeps playing these games?

maartena

Elmo

Premium Member

join:2002-05-10

Orange, CA 17 recommendations maartena Premium Member No surprise... Although telco's are starting to make improvements by deploying fiber..... they aren't deploying it fast enough, and fiber is literally the ONLY option to compete against DOCSIS 3.1. Sure, there are a few short-range options such as g.fast deployments in MDUs and such.... but typically, in 99% of the cases if you want speeds higher than 100 Mbps.... cable is your only option.



And it doesn't come to a surprise....A cable company like Spectrum who is offering 400 Mbps in pretty much the entire Los Angeles market now.... is available in ALL houses in their footprint, not "depending on distance". VDSL technologies get you "somewhere between 12 and 100" - depending on how close you are to the VRAD, and ADSL technologies get you "something up to 20 Mbps" or so at most, again depending on distance.



So as a consumer you see this:



Telco: Speeds up to 100 Mbps, but could be as low as 12 or 25 depending on where you are in the city.

Cable: Speeds up to 400 Mbps for everyone, we don't care where you are!



And until telco's massively start to deploy fiber everywhere, this isn't going to change.

Cbusdude

join:2017-03-03

Pickerington, OH 6 recommendations Cbusdude Member Look at the Telcos that are still adding customers If you look the two telcos actually adding customers (AT&T and Cincinnati Bell) are both companies that are deploying fiber and making that their preferred choice, it isn't surprising at all IMO. b10010011

Whats a Posting tag?

join:2004-09-07

Bellingham, WA 5 recommendations b10010011 Member In some ways cable "gets it" Instead of sitting on their butts milking aging technology for the past 20+ years cable has been investing in new hardware and technologies.



Now if only the cable "television" side would stop living in the past and offer more options to channel bundling packages and offer a REAL streaming option. Ostracus

join:2011-09-05

Henderson, KY 2 recommendations Ostracus Member Geography is a b***h! quote: And while next-generation wireless and low orbit satellite broadband are seen as looming panaceas for this competitive gridlock, the amount of government cronyism we're seeing at the state and federal level, means breaking cable's monopoly is going to be a steep uphill climb. Did we expect otherwise? Where even deep pocket Google Fiber is having difficulties. And labeling wireless and satellite as panaceas is selling them short. While it would be ideal if every connection was fiber at it's fastest, that's not realistic, and would be an example of perfect being the enemy of good. Did we expect otherwise? Where even deep pocket Google Fiber is having difficulties. And labeling wireless and satellite as panaceas is selling them short. While it would be ideal if every connection was fiber at it's fastest, that's not realistic, and would be an example of perfect being the enemy of good. dplantz

join:2000-08-02

Bradenton, FL ·Charter

2 recommendations dplantz Member One error with this article Verizon is doing a lot of coper retirement and fiber replacement this year along with continuing the buildout in Boston and New York City. Parts of serval states are having the rest of their coper turned off later this year. This is happing in towns and cities with existing FIOS fiber that were not completely done a few years ago. Here in Boston 3 central offices will no longer offer coper phone and internet as of the end of August.