North American Telcos’ Struggle to Gain Broadband Subscriber Continues in 3Q12

North American Telco operators struggle to gain fixed broadband subscribers endures as cable operators continue to capture a larger share of the market through faster speeds and better bundles. During 3Q12, cable operators outpaced Telco (DSL + FTTx) by 7:1 in net additions.

DSL subscribers continue to decline, as operators lost 85,000 after dropping 133,000 in 2Q12.  By contrast, Cable operators added over 750k.

At the end of 3Q12, North American operators provided fixed broadband services to 102.2 million with cable representing 56.5 million, DSL at 36.6 million; FTTH at 6.7 million while the “other” category, reached 2.5 million.

Fixed Broadband penetration of U.S. households is 75.4 percent and 83.3 percent of Canadian households.

3Q12 North America Pay-TV

Demand for Pay-TV was flat – which is a good thing – after sharp declines in the last quarter.  Although, subscriber losses continue at Cable MSOs, demand for Telco TV and Satellite services helped to neutralize the declines. During 3Q12, Pay-TV operators lost 14,000 subs to reach 111.43 million subscribers.

Cable MSOs have lost 2.4% of their video subscriber year-over-year,  Telco TV has gained 20%, while Satellite has been negligible at 0.7%.