IP Democracy: U.S. Cable Nears Nine Million Telephony Mark

U. S. cable operators are gaining telephony customers at a scorching rate. According to my tally (see table at end) the top cable companies counted 8.77 million voice customers at the end of 2006, which represents a year-over-year growth rate of 582%.

Based on the sequential net additions, it looks like cable’s growth rate in the voice business is accelerating. The quarterly net new voice customers has continued to ramp up every quarter since Q4 05.

Look for more growth acceleration ahead as the operators continue to light up new voice launches - Comcast still has nearly six million homes passed that are not yet capable of buying telephony services. You can bet that most, if not all, of these homes will get the hot product soon enough.

Penetration of cable voice services is very healthy, particularly at what is a very early stage of the market. At year-end 2006, industry-wide voice service penetration (subscribers as a percentage of homes capable of buying cable telelphony) stood at 9%.

It took about four years for cable modem service to reach a comparable level of penetration, about double the amount of time. (Granted, high-speed Internet access was a new idea back in 1997, when operators began to roll out modem service in earnest. Telephony, on the other hand, is a well-understood service that needs little explanation.)

One other interesting point: Four companies dominate the cable voice market. Comcast, Cox, Cablevision and Time Warner accounted for 88% or 7.7 million of the combined voice subscribers, at the end of 2006.

Posted by Cynthia Brumfield on March 12, 2007 3:48 PM to IP Democracy