Thanks in large part to its acquisitions of Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks, Charter Communications is now the third-largest supplier of Carrier Ethernet services, trailing only AT&T and Level 3 Communications.

That’s according to Vertical Systems Group following the release of its mid-year 2016 U.S. Leaderboard, which ranks companies on retail port share. Vertical Systems Group’s Leaderboard threshold is 4% or more of billable port installations.

Among cable operators, Comcast is the sixth-largest in the U.S., while Cox Communications is eighth.   The aggregation of Charter and its acquisitions dropped Verizon to fourth.

At the end of 2015, TWC was the largest cable MSO, ranked fifth, on the Leaderboard, while Charter and Bright House were relegated to the “Challenge Tier,” which includes companies that have between 1% to 4% share of the U.S. retail Ethernet market.

“The competitive balance of the Ethernet marketplace is evident, as more than 60 percent of new connections were delivered by CLECs and Cable MSOs during the first half of 2016,” Rick Malone, principal of Vertical Systems Group, said in a statement. “Our analysis shows a 17% annualized growth rate for U.S. Carrier Ethernet services for the full year.”

Cogent, Integra, Lightpath (now part of Altice USA) and Zayo were in the Challenge Tier for the mid-2016 tally.

Vertical’s Market Player tier (share below 1%) included the following: Alpheus Communications, American Telesis, Birch Communications, BT Global Services, Cincinnati Bell, Consolidated Communications, Earthlink Business, Expedient, FairPoint, FiberLight, Frontier, Global Capacity, Global Cloud Xchange, GTT, Hawaiian Telecom, Lightower, LS Networks, Lumos Networks, Masergy, MegaPath, NTT America, Orange Business, RCN Business, Sprint, SuddenLink (now part of Altice USA), Tata, TDS Telecom, TelePacific, Telstra, US Signal, WOW!Business and other companies selling retail Ethernet services in the U.S. market.

Comcast Business retained its spot as the fastest-growing Ethernet provider in the U.S. in 2014, matching the distinction the MSO achieved in 2013, according to new data from Vertical Systems Group.

Comcast's business services unit pulled in $1.05 billion in revenues in the fourth quarter of 2014, and $3.9 billion for the full-year, up 22% versus 2013. The bulk of those revenues are still coming way of smaller business served off of Comcast’s hybrid fiber/coax networks and not yet from its fiber-based Metro Ethernet platform.

Speaking on the MSO’s fourth quarter call on Tuesday (Feb. 24), Comcast Cable president and CEO Neil Smit said Comcast Business is enjoying about 25% penetration in the small- and mid-sized commercial services sector, and about 5% in the mid-market, the area that the MSO is targeting with MetroE. Comcast has also developed an “Ethernet @Home” service that runs off of HFC to serve smaller business customers. 

As for the broader Ethernet market, AT&T was the top U.S. Ethernet provider in 2014, according to Vertical Systems Group’s new leaderboard, followed by Level 3 (aided by its acquisition of tw telecom last year), Verizon Communications, CenturyLink, Time Warner Cable, Comcast, Cox, and XO Communications.

Providers in Vertical Systems Group’s “Challenge Tier,” which include companies with 1% to 4% share of the U.S. retail Ethernet market, include Charter Communications, Cogent, Lightpath (Cablevisions Systems), Windstraem and Zayo.

Vertical Systems bases its rankings on billable retail port installations.