The continued decline of DSL

For a brief moment in the past decade, Verizon and AT&T gave cable broadband a good run for its money. Not anymore. As two of the largest phone companies have shifted focus to their more lucrative wireless business, cable broadband has been running away with the wired broadband market. The proof — admittedly in bits and pieces — comes from the recently reported earnings of AT&T, Verizon and Time Warner Cable. Both major phone companies reported astonishing revenue growth, most of it from the sale of smartphones and lucrative (and increasingly expensive) data plans for the customers.

During the fourth quarter of 2011 (which ended on Dec. 31, 2011), Verizon lost 103,000 DSL lines. In comparison, it lost 118,000 DSL lines during the third quarter of 2011 (which ended on Sept. 30, 2011) and 127,000 in the quarter ending June 39, 2011.

The numbers at AT&T are worse. During the fourth quarter of 2011, Ma Bell lost 636,000 DSL lines, up from 501,000 during the third quarter of 2011 and 451,000 during the three months ending on June 30, 2011.

Now compare this with Time Warner Cable, which added a whopping 130,000 broadband connections.

So why is DSL continuing to nose-dive? First of all, the phone companies themselves are not interested in pushing the envelope on DSL and instead are focusing on their higher-end offerings.