Broadband by the numbers in Q3

Telcos and cable operators continued ramping up broadband expansions in the second quarter, offering new fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) and higher-speed HFC-based offerings.

Broadband continues to be a key priority for telcos and cable operators, a trend that continued into the third quarter of 2024.

During the third quarter, the largest cable and wireline phone providers in the U.S. – representing about 96 percent of the market – acquired about 796,834 new net additional broadband Internet subscribers.    

Lightwave+BTR is tracking the top broadband providers. This list includes the top publicly traded telco and cable operators, ranked by the number of broadband subscribers at the end of the third quarter of 2024.

In this report, we track two metrics:

Broadband Additions, Losses: This looks at the total number of subscribers the top broadband providers had at the end of the third quarter. In the broadband race, it’s clear that cable, which once was the dominant player, continued to shed subscribers in the third quarter. Charter and Comcast lost 110,000 and 87,000 subscribers, a factor mainly attributed to the ending of the FCC’s Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) program. Alternatively, traditional telcos saw their broadband bases grow. AT&T and Verizon added 226,000 and 389,000 subscribers during the quarter.

Broadband Revenues: As the largest cable operators and telcos add more broadband subscribers, they will enhance broadband revenues. Despite seeing their broadband bases dwindle during the quarter, Comcast and Charter still commanded broadband revenues of $6.54 billion and $5.98 billion. Driven by fiber-based broadband and Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) sales, AT&T and Verizon reported broadband revenues of $2.8 and $2.9 billion.

Look at the chart below to see how these providers performed. We calculated these numbers by collecting information from each service provider’s earnings report.