Nearly 12 million homes receive broadband Internet service from major U.S.
cable and telephone providers, following additions of 5 million over the past
year, according to a new report from Leichtman Research Group Inc.
Leichtman said the 10 largest U.S. MSOs provided cable-modem service to about
7.8 million subscribers and the four regional telcos served about 4.1 million
digital-subscriber-line customers at the end of the first quarter of 2002.
The research group added that year-to-year growth for both technologies was
largely level, with cable seeing a 78 percent growth in subscribers and DSL, at
79 percent, just a tick ahead.
Cable, however, added almost twice as many customers (3.4 million) than the
major residential DSL providers (1.8 million) during the period.
'The challenges ahead for both cable and DSL providers are to find ways to
continue to grow the subscriber base and to add new services for existing
customers,' Leichtman president and principal analyst Bruce Leichtman said in a
prepared statement.
