A new type of cord-cutting: Snipping broadband

When you think of cord cutting, you undoubtedly think of people giving up their subscriptions to pay TV in order to save money. But it may be time to broaden that definition. There’s new evidence that people are cutting the cord on something else as well – broadband Internet.

The finding comes in a new report from Ovum, a media and telecom research firm, which notes that several companies have seen more than one quarter of decline in broadband. It notes that most US telecom providers have been losing landline or cable subscribers for years. But now that’s expanded to include broadband. “Cord-cutting started in landlines and gave way to cord-cutting in pay TV in the US. We are now entering the realm of triple cord-cutting,” says Kristin Paulin, a senior analyst at Ovum. During third quarter, AT&T and Windstream saw declines in all three services they offer (broadband, cable and landlines), while Frontier suffered losses in phone and Internet. Still, Ovum forecasts that broadband decreases will increase over the next few years.