The largest cable, telco and fixed wireless providers netted about 1.065 million new broadband Internet subscribers during the first quarter of the year. Broadband subscriber growth was down compared to the 1.12 million netted during the first quarter of 2021, according to Leichtman Research Group (LRG).
The companies account for about 109.3 million subscribers and 96% of the market. Cable companies have about 75.6 million, wireline phone companies about 32.3 million and fixed wireless providers about 1.4 million subscribers.
The top five cable company results: Comcast had net additions of about 262,000 to finish the quarter at about 32.2 million subscribers. Charter had net additions of about 185,000 subscribers to finish at about 30.3 million subscribers. Cox had net additions of about 30,000 subscribers to finish at about 5.6 million subscribers. Altice had net losses of about 13,000 subscribers to end at about 4.4 million subscribers. Mediacom had net additions of about 5,000 subscribers and finished at 1.5 million subscribers.
The top five phone company results: AT&T had net additions of about 29,000 subscribers to finish the quarter at about 15.5 million. Verizon had net additions of about 35,000 subscribers to finish at about 7.4 million subscribers; Lumen had net losses of 49,000 subscribers to end at about 4.5 million subscribers. Frontier had net additions of about 20,000 subscribers to finish at about 2.8 million subscribers and Windstream had net additions of about 11,300 subscribers to finish at about 1.2 million subscribers.
- Overall, broadband additions in the quarter were 95% of those in the year-ago quarter
- The top cable companies added about 480,000 subscribers which is 52% of the net additions for the top cable companies in the year ago-quarter
- The top wireline phone companies added about 50,000 total broadband subscribers in the quarter, compared to about 80,000 net adds in the year-ago quarter
- Wireline telcos had about 480,000 net adds via fiber in the quarter and about 430,000 non-fiber net losses
- Fixed wireless/5G home Internet services from T-Mobile and Verizon added about 530,000 subscribers in the quarter, compared to 110,000 net adds in the year ago quarter.
“Top broadband providers added over one million subscribers in 1Q 2022, similar to last year’s first quarter, but the distribution of net broadband additions differed from a year ago,” Bruce Leichtman, the president and principal analyst for Leichtman Research Group, said in a press release. “Fixed wireless services accounted for half of the net broadband adds in 1Q 2022, compared to about 10% of the net adds in 1Q 2021.”
In March, Leichtman Research Group said that broadband providers had a net gain of 2.95 million broadband Internet subscribers in 2021.
