Cable Expands Broadband Domination as AT&T and Verizon Lose Customers (arstechnica.com)

The cable industry's grip on the U.S. broadband space increased last quarter, with Comcast and Charter gaining nearly 500,000 subscribers, combined. Phone companies AT&T, Verizon, CenturyLink, and Frontier, however, all lost Internet customers. ArsTechnica reports:The 14 largest ISPs, accounting for 95 percent of the US market, gained 192,510 Internet customers in Q2 2016, bringing the total to 91.9 million, Leichtman Research Group reported today. Cable companies accounted for all of the gains, adding 553,293 subscribers for a new total of 57 million. The phone companies lost 360,783 subscribers, bringing them down to 34.9 million. Phone companies' losses more than doubled since Q2 2015, when they lost about 150,000 subscribers. [...] Comcast and Charter, the two biggest ISPs, led the way in subscriber gains. Comcast added 220,000 broadband subscribers to boost its total to 24 million, while Charter (the new owner of Time Warner Cable) added 277,000 subscribers for a new total of 21.8 million. AT&T lost 123,000 subscribers, lowering its total to 15.6 million. Verizon lost 83,000, leaving it with 7 million Internet customers. CenturyLink and Frontier lost 66,000 and 77,000, respectively.

Comments

Re:DSL shouldn't be considered broadband any more.

[MBGMorden]

It's not optimal but really it ain't terrible either. I have 50Mbps cable at my house, but I go over to my parents at least every other weekend and they live further out - 3Mbps DSL is the best available in their area (I'm surprised they even have that available).

Honestly - if I were to download a file, it obviously goes a lot slower, but as far as just browsing the web and even watching Youtube videos on their Roku: The difference isn't even noticeable vs my connection at home.

Whether you want to call it "broadband" or not, DSL is still a perfectly functional and usable Internet connection (unlike dial-up where just browsing the web is slow to the point of being unusable).