US broadband growth slows to a trickle with only 260,000 new connections

US broadband is growing – albeit much more slowly according to data collected by Leichtman Research Group, a market research company. During the second quarter of 2012, US added 260,000 broadband subscribers, down sharply from 350,000 broadband subscribers added during the second quarter of 2011.

• According to Leichtman, “the net broadband additions in the quarter were the fewest of any quarter in the eleven years LRG has been tracking the industry.”
• Top cable companies added about 330,000 subscribers. In the second quarter of 2011, they had added 271,000 new subscribers.
• The top telephone companies lost about 70,000 subscribers versus a gain of about 80,000 in 2Q 2011. AT&T and Verizon had fewer net broadband adds in Q2 2012 than in any previous quarter in the past eleven years
• AT&T and Verizon added 669,000 fiber subscribers in the quarter (via U-verse and FiOS) and had a net loss of 763,000 DSL subscribers.
• Comcast now has 18.74 million broadband subscribers, making it the biggest broadband provider in the US.