ISP-Planet Managing Editor [August 29, 2008] |  |
The end of growth
The top five ISPs in our list (counting Time Warner twice) have a combined market share of 55.8 percent. If the sleepy FCC were to allow just one or two more mega-mergers, the clock would have wound back to the Bell era, and the U.S. would stop innovating as the rest of the world grows.
The Bell companies did particularly poorly this quarter, and lost a little ground to cable.
Verizon appeared to lose subscribers but claims subscriber growth. This press release from April 22, 2008 (Q1, 2008) claims 8.5 million subscribers including 1.8 million FiOS, and this press release from July 28, 2008 (Q2, 2008) claims growth but this (.xls) speadsheet shows 8.33 million subscribers, including 2 million FiOS. This discrepancy may be due to Verizon's copper firesale. It's selling off subscribers, not lying to the world.
Subscriber number expert Bruce Leichman, president and principal analyst for Leichtman Research Group, Inc, reports that the phone companies may no longer care about DSL. "Net broadband additions in the quarter were the fewest of any quarter in the seven years LRG has been tracking the industry. While the relative number of quarterly broadband adds has certainly peaked, the decline in additions this quarter compared to the same period last year was exacerbated by Verizon and AT&T's emphasis on selling higher speed FiOS and U-verse bundled services, often at the expense of the traditional DSL service."
The subscriber totals on our list have changed dramatically before, but only when ISPs stopped disclosing dialup or ISDN lines. This is the first ever true decline in subscriber numbers of the ISPs on our list.
Rank | ISP | Subs. (millions) | Date & Source | Market Share |
1 | SBC (AT&T) (business and consumer DSL, ISDN, U-Verse, and satellite) | 14.7 | [July 23, 2008] Press Release [.xls] | 15.2% |
2 | Comcast (cable broadband) | 14.4 | [July 30, 2008] SEC 10-Q | 14.9% |
3 | Road Runner (cable broadband, both business and residential) | 8.4 | [July 30, 2008] Trending Schedules | 8.4% |
4 | Verizon (FiOS and DSL) | 8.3 | [July 28, 2008] Press Release [.xls] | 8.7% |
5 | America Online (all U.S. AOL brand accounts) | 8.1 | [July 30, 2008] Trending Schedules | 8.9% |
6 | EarthLink (DSL, dialup, cable, satellite, PLC, and webhosting—some other business lines not included) | 3.3 | [August 1, 2008] SEC 10-Q | 3.4% |
7 | Charter (cable broadband) | 2.8 | [August 5, 2008] SEC 10-Q | 2.9% |
8 | Qwest (DSL only) | 2.7 | [August 6, 2008] Press Release [.pdf] | 2.8% |
9 | Cablevision (cable broadband) | 2.4 | [August 1, 2008] SEC 10-Q | 2.5% |
10 | United Online (counting paid access only) | 1.6 | [August 8, 2008] SEC 10-Q | 1.6% |
11 | Embarq (DSL only, formerly part of Sprint) | 1.4 | [July 30, 2008] SEC 10-Q | 1.4% |
12 | Windstream (DSL only, formerly ALLTEL and Valor) | .93 | [August 8, 2008] SEC 10-Q | 1.0% |
13 | Mediacom (cable broadband, dialup, and SMB broadband) | .70 | [August 8, 2008] SEC 10-Q | 0.7% |
14 | CenturyTel (DSL and dialup) | .61 | [July 31, 2008] Press Release | 0.6% |
15 | Citizens (DSL only) | .56 | [August 5, 2008] Press Release | 0.6% |
16 | Insight Broadband (cable broadband) | .42 | [August 4, 2008] Press Release [.pdf] | 0.4% |
17 | Clearwire (fixed wireless broadband) | .41 | [August 8, 2008] SEC 10-Q | 0.4% |
18 | Hughes Network Systems (satellite broadband) | .40 | [August 7, 2008] SEC 10-Q | 0.4% |
19 | LocalNet (dialup) | .26 | ISP-Planet article (reconfirmed by e-mail on June 16, 2008) | 0.3% |
20 | Cincinnati Bell (DSL only) | .23 | [July 31, 2008] SEC 10-Q | 0.2% |
21 | SureWest (broadband) | .100 | [August 11, 2008] SEC 10-Q | 0.1% |
22 | GCI (cable broadband) | .100 | [August 11, 2008] SEC 10-Q | 0.1% |
23 | ACS (DSL and dialup) | .056 | [August 5, 2008] Press Release | 0.1% |
24 | Other U.S. ISPs | 23.8 | 24.6% |
Data
We use Jupiter Research estimates in several areas (note, Jupiter Research is now part of JupiterKagan). Jupiter Research estimated the total number of subscribers in the United States to be 91.7 million subscribers at the end of Q2, 2007, and we do not have more recent data. Note, however, that more recent data is available to Jupiter Research subscribers.
This number does not include: subscribers at universities and in government.
It includes residential consumer accounts and some business accounts (the distinction is eroding as residential broadband speeds rise and telework grows).
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