AT&T is Crushing Cable: Is Super Fast Broadband Really Necessary?

If you take a look at broadband subscriber metrics over the past year, AT&T is outperforming all of the cable operators -- by a long shot.

AT&T is first to report 2Q13 numbers, during which they added 641,000 net broadband subscribers. If 2Q13 compares in any way to the previous three quarters, AT&T is crushing their faster cable competitors. For the past three quarters, AT&T has more broadband net adds than three of the top five cable companies -- Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and Charter – combined. Most, if not all, of those net adds are U-Verse broadband, considering AT&T (and Verizon) lose considerable legacy DSL subscribers every quarter. AT&T’s best U-Verse offer is 24 Mbps, for now anyway. That compares with DOCSIS 3.0 offers from their cable competitors that can range from 50 Mbps to 305 Mbps, on the high end. If higher speed broadband tiers are so important, how is it AT&T is adding more broadband subscribers than three of the top five cable MSOs combined?