Top cable companies quietly expand their broadband territory, ensuring growth for the foreseeable future

Cable operators, cognizant that the broadband wave the industry has been riding for more than a decade could eventually come to a halt, have quietly been building out their service footprints, expanding the pool of potential high-speed internet customers and ensuring a lengthy growth runway for their most profitable service. In the second quarter, both Charter Communications and Comcast reported record broadband subscriber growth despite the ongoing pandemic. Charter led the way with the addition of 850,000 broadband customers (588,000, when certain COVID-19 related programs are excluded). Comcast added 323,000 subscribers for its best Q2 growth in 13 years. Even with the COVID-19 programs excluded — mainly the Federal Communications Commission’s Keep Americans Connected Pledge and Charter’s own Remote Education Offer — broadband growth was an all-time high for Charter. 

While the popularity of the broadband product could be due to Americans being confined to their homes for most of the day as the pandemic rages on, both Charter and Comcast believe that there is ample runway ahead for the service. And they aren’t the only ones.