Copper Based Broadband Decline is Accelerating, Sort Of

While still the dominant method for broadband access across the world, the decline in copper based broadband connections is accelerating, according to a recent Point Topic report.

That’s not surprising news, especially here in the U.S. where the two largest incumbent DSL providers, Verizon and AT&T, have been hemorrhaging millions of basic DSL subscribers for the past couple years. The rise in fiber and hybrid fiber-coaxial (HFC) broadband connections are coming at copper’s expense. Point Topic reported that copper based broadband connections had declined for the first time in 4Q12, with 415K copper based broadband subscribers lost. They now report an acceleration in that trend, with over 2.77 million copper based broadband connections lost in the first three months of 2013. Despite my reference to AT&T and Verizon in the U.S., Point Topic points to rapid declines for copper based broadband in Asia as playing a major role in this trend. The U.S. is somewhat unique in the world, given the strong position of cable MSOs with respect to broadband connections. No other region in the world comes close to the percentage that cable holds for broadband, which Point Topic pegs at 50% for the “Americas” region.