Broadband Internet Grows to 19 Million in the U.S. First Quarter of 2003 Most Successful Quarter Ever For Broadband Durham, NH – May 16, 2003 - Leichtman Research Group (LRG) found that, as of the end of the first quarter of 2003, the leading cable and DSL providers in the United States now account for over 19 million high-speed Internet subscribers. The first quarter of 2003 saw record quarterly growth as the major US cable and DSL providers added a combined total of nearly 1.9 million subscribers during the quarter.
Other key findings include:
The top cable companies acquired 65% of the net broadband additions for the quarter, with cable adding 1.23 million broadband Internet subscribers in the quarter compared to 650,000 added by the major DSL providers The top cable operators now account for over 12.25 million broadband Internet subscribers, maintaining a 64% share of the market versus DSL The top ten US cable providers have broadband Internet available to 87 million potential subscribers – about 84% of their cumulative footprint, and nearly 14% of all those who could get broadband Internet currently subscribe “Both cable and DSL had record setting quarters in the first quarter of 2003, but cable continued the trend of adding nearly twice as many subscribers as DSL,” said Bruce Leichtman, president and principal analyst for Leichtman Research Group, Inc. “It will be very interesting to see if the lower priced offerings recently introduced by major DSL providers have an impact on cable’s dominance in the second quarter of 2003.”
Broadband Internet Provider Subscribers at End of Q1 2003 Net Adds in Q1 2003 Cable Modem Comcast 4,037,300 417,000 Time Warner 2,686,000 260,000 Cox 1,562,383 154,433 Charter 1,272,300 134,200 Cablevision 852,835 82,710 Adelphia** 670,000 60,000 Bright House Networks** 530,000 40,000 Mediacom 214,000 23,000 RCN 174,125 13,722 Insight 168,300 23,500 Cable One 95,800 17,700 Total Top Cable* 12,263,043 1,226,265
DSL SBC 2,470,000 271,000 Verizon 1,830,000 160,000 Bell South 1,122,000 101,000 Qwest** 550,000 15,000 Covad 417,000 36,000 Sprint 185,000 34,000 ALLTEL 88,000 17,818 Cincinnati Bell 83,000 8,400 CenturyTel 60,000 7,700 Total Top DSL* 6,805,000 650,918
Total Broadband 19,068,043 1,877,183 Sources: The Companies and Leichtman Research Group, Inc.
* Top cable and DSL providers represent approximately 98% of all subscribers