Four articles about "digital delivery" modes--the pipe wars continues:

Broadband by the Numbers
DSL is gaining subscribers faster than cable, but cable still leads in broadband services.
Red Herring, December 19, 2005

While the number of subscribers signing up for DSL broadband services in the United States continues to outpace the number of new subscribers for cable broadband services, cable operators continue to hold a shrinking but significant lead over the hard-charging telecommunications carriers.

Leichtman Research Group, a research firm based in Durham, New Hampshire, issued a report on Monday that said the 20 largest broadband providers in the United States acquired a record 2.6 million net additional subscribers in the third quarter of 2005.

The top DSL providers added 1.42 million subscribers, representing 54 percent of the net broadband additions for the quarter, while cable providers added 1.2 million subscribers.

With the 1.42 million new subscribers, DSL providers set a new all-time record, according to Leichtman. The total number of new subscribers for DSL service in the corresponding quarter in 2004 was 379,000 fewer.

Cable’s 1.2 million new subscribers were about 80,000 less than the record set by cable providers in the third quarter of 2004.

DSL providers added 520,000 more subscribers than cable for the year. Overall, however, cable service providers maintain a 6.2-million subscriber advantage over DSL and have a 58 percent share of the U.S. residential broadband market.

Together the top cable operators and telecommunications carriers account for over 40.2 million broadband subscribers—about 94 percent of the market. Cable has more than 23.2 million broadband subscribers, while DSL has 17.0 million.

The U.S. is one of only a handful of countries where cable holds an overall subscriber lead over DSL.

Breakdown by Company

AT&T, which has the second-largest total number of subscribers, added the most subscribers of any cable or DSL provider with 528,000. Comcast, which has the most subscribers of any company, added 437,000 subscribers in the quarter.

Verizon was next with 389,000 subscribers added in the quarter, followed by Time Warner with 234,000 new additions.

Cable operators added 485,100 new phone service subscribers in the third quarter of 2005—a significant increase from the 154,400 new subscribers they added in the third quarter of 2004.

Another interesting competitive tidbit shows that while Verizon has acquired about 2,500 video subscribers in Keller, Texas, one of the two cities where it currently offers video services, Cablevision is adding about 1,350 telephone subscribers per day in the New York area.

Media Post.com; Just an online minute
Wednesday, August 24, 2005 by Tobi Elkin


Have we reached critical mass on consumer broadband penetration in the United States? Well, apparently JupiterResearch says we have. Jupiter reports that more than 43 percent of online households now connect to the Web via broadband, thus constituting critical mass.

Jupiter projects that broadband adoption will reach nearly 80 percent of online U.S. households, or 69 million households, by 2010. The market researcher maintains that portals and content sites can leverage these increases by experimenting with personalization features, Flash-based home pages, customizable RSS feeds, and other advanced functions.

Price cuts by communications companies like Verizon and SBC and some cable providers are driving higher household broadband penetration. In fact, today news spread that Yahoo! will offer a low-cost broadband service with Verizon for $14.95 per month. The service will include antivirus software, on-demand video, and unlimited photo storage. Sounds like a sweet deal. There are also upgrade options for consumers who want even higher speeds. Of course, that makes us wonder exactly how high-speed the low-cost service is.

That prices are coming down on broadband is a good thing, but it's only a matter of time before "good," "better," and "best" speeds and feeds take hold in consumers' minds and they begin to get wise to the differences between a truly high-performance broadband service and a pokier one.

The Minute is happy with her broadband service delivered via a Time Warner cable modem, though yesterday, the service conked out. The service representative said it was likely that I needed a new cable modem box since none of the lights lit up after a diagnostic check. So we headed down to the Time Warner service center this morning to exchange the old box for a new one. We'll see what happens tonight...

Broadband eyes a quantum leap
Internet access 50 times faster than current speeds could arrive via TV cables as early as '06.
CNN Technology, July 20, 2005: 7:48 AM EDT

HELSINKI (Reuters) - Broadband Internet access via TV cables will be able to hit 100 megabits per second as early as next year, 50 times faster than the average broadband speeds now offered to cable TV homes, a Finnish firm said Wednesday.

Similar data transmission speeds are possible over fiber networks, but these cost much more for the operators to build.

"This is a cost-efficient technology as we use the cable TV networks which are already in place," Jukka Rinnevaara, chief executive of small-cap Finnish broadband equipment manufacturer Teleste, told Reuters.

Teleste, whose rivals include big U.S. firms Scientific Atlanta (up $1.11 to $38.31, Research) and Cisco Systems Inc. (up $0.52 to $20.17, Research), said it would early next year bring to the market its ethernet-to-home product, which will give consumers access to 100Mb/s speed.

The sector is closely followed by big technology firms. Last month Sweden's Ericsson (up $0.04 to $34.07, Research) offered $51 million to buy Norwegian firm AXXESSIT, which makes broadband ethernet access equipment for telecom operators. To accelerate the transmission speed Teleste fits ethernet -- a cheap and standard transport method for Internet data over broadband networks -- into cable television networks.

It said it expects first rival technology to be on the market at the earliest in the second quarter of 2007.

Teleste is running a field-trial with cable TV service provider Essent in Netherlands, but not yet at the top speeds it expects most homes will need within a few years.

"Based on our research, 30 megabits per second is the absolute minimum in future homes. Just one TV program would take 10-20 megabits per second of this alone. So, very fast we would reach a need for 30 megabits, and also for 50 megabits per second," Pekka Rissanen, a Teleste executive told a news conference.

Rissanen said the cost of connecting a home with the new ethernet-to-the-home technology can vary between 50 ($60.28) and 200 ($241).

CEO Rinnevaara declined to say how much the new technology could boost Teleste's sales or profits in the next 12 months.

Internet access may also hit your power outlets.

Verizon introduces fiber optic TV services
NYT, Ken Belson, Sept. 23, 2005

Verizon Communications began taking orders yesterday for its new television service, which the
company hopes will draw business away from cable and satellite
providers.

As part of a national strategy, about 9,000 Verizon
customers in Keller, Tex., 30 miles west of Dallas, will be the first
to subscribe to the television service, called FiOS TV. The service
includes more than 180 digital video and music channels, 20
high-definition channels and video-on-demand for $39.95 a month,
carried over fiber optic cables that were installed to replace older
copper lines.

The service in Keller is part of Verizon's
plan to compete head-on with cable companies that in the last 18 months
have started selling digital phone lines. To keep customers from
defecting, Verizon and SBC Communications are starting to sell digital programming to complement their phone and broadband services.

The companies have taken different routes. Verizon is spending billions of
dollars to run fiber lines all the way to customers' homes - lines that
also carry phone calls and broadband connections. SBC, by contrast, is
running fiber lines to neighborhoods and using existing copper lines to
reach homes.

Either way, the phone companies are trying to
assemble bundles of phone, high-speed Internet and television services
that match what the cable industry offers.

Verizon's new television product will include more local channels not often found on
satellite systems, and customers can order additional programming based
on a genre, like sports and movies.

"This is just the beginning of TV that rides on a wave of light into people's homes," Steve Banta,
president of Verizon's southwest region, said.

The company plans to introduce FiOS TV in six other markets, including several in
Florida, Virginia and California, by the end of the year, when its
fiber optic network will be available to three million homes.

Verizon has signed deals to obtain programming rights from most major
television and movie studios. The company also signed franchise
agreements with individual municipalities in Texas before the state
government passed a law this summer that would allow Verizon and others
to obtain agreements from the Texas Public Utility Commission. Instead
of negotiating with towns for an agreement, which can take up to 18
months, Verizon can get approval from the commission instead.

Texas, however, is the only state to pass such a law, which means Verizon must
still negotiate deals with individual cities in other states.Verizon
expects to sign up 20 percent of homes that can receive FiOS service in
Keller by the end of the year, according to Bob Ingalls, the president
of the company's retail group.