IP Democracy: Cable's Ahead in the Triple Play Race


The earnings reports are in and the triple-play tally is leaning in cable’s favor.  According to my analysis (more details at IP Media Monitor - free registration), cable operators ended the quarter with more than six million telephony customers, adding 677,000 net new customers during the quarter.

Cable Telephony Subscriber Counts (000)
  2Q05 3Q05 4Q05 1Q06 2Q06
Comcast*     1,228    1,230    1,242    1,321    1,463
Cox**     1,506    1,607    1,697    1,807    1,892
Cablevision***        487       609       739       873       994
Charter         68        90       122       191       258
Insight         74        81        90       100       107
Mediacom  na           2        22        46        66
Time Warner        614       854    1,100    1,370    1,604
Total     3,976    4,474    5,012    5,708    6,384
Quarterly Adds.    (3,467)       498       538       696       677
Total Telephony Homes Passed by Group   44,641  50,766  59,321  69,727  78,030
Subs. % of Telephony Homes Passed 8.9% 8.8% 8.4% 8.2% 8.2%
*At end of Q2 06, Comcast passed 25.6 million homes with VoIP service and counted 721,000 VoIP or digital voice customers.  The remaining homes passed and subscribers reflected legacy circuit-switched.
**EMDI estimates.  Note Cox offers a mixed of circuit-switched and VoIP service.
***Includes sequentially decreasing, and increasingly trivial, amounts of legacy circuit-switched customers.
Source:  Company reports and Emerging Media Analysis estimates.  © 2006.

Incumbent telcos, on the other hand, counted just about two million video subscribers at the end of the quarter. Granted, these are all video customers that flowed from the companies’ DBS alliances, and the real video competition via fiber-based networks has yet to begin. Still, cable has swiped about three times as much of the telcos’ core customer base as the phone companies have stolen from the cable operator’s traditional video customer count.

Incumbent Telco Video Subscribers via DBS Partnerships (000s)
           
Telco 2Q05 3Q05 4Q05 1Q06 2Q06
AT&T     404     419     457     491     533
BellSouth     394     460     523     628     691
Qwest     120     151     183     228     273
Verizon*     250     305     349     415     485
Total  1,168  1,335  1,512  1,762  1,982
Net Change    161    166    178    249    220
*Q2 05 is an estimate.
Source:  Company reports and Emerging Media Analysis estimates.  © 2006.


Posted by Cynthia Brumfield on August 14, 2006 2:30 PM to IP Democracy