Re: North America Cable Modem Stats- All Major MSOs
Shawn- Excellent timing for your question. I was just getting ready to post the below. It contains a wealth of information about the MSO world in North America.
I don't have the detailed region by region breakdown you requested. If I may ask, why would you want to know detail to that level? -MikeM(From Florida)
**********************************
North American MSO Stats
-Cable modem service passes 48 million homes in US and Canada
-Cable modem service is available to 44% of all cable TV homes in North America
-By 2002 cable modem service will pass 70% of US cable TV homes
-By 2003 there will be 9.78 million cable modem subscribers in US
-By 2003 there will be 73.2 million cable modem capable homes
-As of today, there are over 3 million cable modem subs in US and Canada
-2.3 million are US cable modem subs
-800 thousand are Canadian cable modem subs
-As of today there are 4 million cable modem subs worldwide
-Installs of 7,500 cable modem subs per day are occuring in North America
-ATT(and MediaOne) have 695,000 cable modem subs
-Time Warner has 465,000 cable modem subs
-Cox has 305,000 cable modem subs
-Shaw has 260,000 cable modem subs
-Rogers has 240,000 cable modem subs
-Charter has 170,000 cable modem subs
-ATT(with MediaOne) has 16 million cable TV customers
-ATT passes 28 million homes
-At end of Q100 ATT had 39,500 cable telephony customers[this may be an error]
-Time Warner has 13 million cable subs
-Time Warner cable system passes 20 million homes
-85% of Time Warner cable plant has been upgraded to two way HFC 750Mhz
-Excite@Home has 1,800,000 subs
-Road Runner has 875,000 subs
___________________
AOL /Time Warner - Coup de Grace?
New York, Jun 16, 2000-- Cable, telephone, satellite and wireless companies battle to control what the industry calls, "the last mile" - the connection that feeds directly into people's homes. The growth of the Internet has sharpened the contest; since more and more consumer spending is expected to shift to goods and services marketed over the Internet, ownership of the last mile has become an increasingly valuable asset.
The victors will almost certainly be the companies that can provide "broadband" access, providing at-home service of similar quality to that enjoyed at the office. Everybody wants to control the wires that go directly into people's homes - the last mile - along with the ability to sell customers all sorts of exciting new value-added services.
Telephone companies, rather than installing wider pipes, are trying to squeeze more through their relatively narrow wires. They have begun to roll-out a technology called digital subscriber line, xDSL, that can deliver video and high-speed Internet to homes and small businesses over ordinary copper telephone lines.
However, cable companies have the lead in this highly competitive contest. They are ideally placed to capitalize on the new open telecom market and the bandwidth offered by their existing cable pipeline. After all, their wires already run past 95% of America's homes. Forrester Research predicts that about 20 million people will use cable to access the Internet by 2003, compared to about 8 million DSL subscribers by the same year.
To get into the high-speed Internet services business cable operators have to do more than simply install cable modem gear. Rather, they must build a sophisticated end-to-end IP networking infrastructure in each community they serve, robust enough to support tens of thousands of data subscribers. That includes items like Internet backbone connectivity, routers, servers, network management tools, as well as security and billing systems. In essence, cable operators are faced with the task of building some of the world's largest "intranets", a serious engineering and operations challenge.
Most cable modem systems rely upon a shared access platform, much like an office LAN. Because cable modem subscribers share available bandwidth during their sessions, there are concerns that cable modem users will see poor performance as subscriber numbers increase on the network. Commonsense dictates that 200 cable data subscribers sharing a 27-Mbps connection would each get only about 135 Kbps of throughput - virtually the same speed as a 128-Kbps ISDN connection. However, this simple logic does not completely follow.
Unlike circuit-switched telephone networks, where a caller is allocated a dedicated connection, cable modem users do not occupy a fixed amount of bandwidth during their online session. Instead, they share the network with other active users and use the network's resources only when they actually send or receive data in quick bursts. So, instead of 200 cable online users each being allocated 135 Kbps, they are able to grab all the bandwidth available during the millisecond they need to download their data packets - up to many megabits per second.
At the customer's end, there should be an Ethernet-equipped computer and a cable modem. The modems are produced by a number of companies, including Motorola, 3Com and Toshiba. Some cable companies rent modems and include the fee in the monthly service charge; others require subscribers to buy them for about $200 to $300. For now, cable Internet access is restricted primarily to home users, cable companies didn't wire downtown or business parks, so many businesses are out-of-luck. In most markets, service costs vary from $30 to $40 a month, although in some areas the cheapest access costs $70. Downstream speeds at those price levels range from 256 kbps to 512 kbps. The faster the service, the more it will cost - 2 mbps downstream, 1 mbps upstream runs upward of $500 a month in some places.
In some areas of the country where the service is available - university towns such as Boston and San Francisco, for instance, and rich suburbs full of wealthy nerds - more than a quarter of Internet users have switched-over to cable. However, cable Internet access has yet to reach the masses. Cable modem service is now accessible to 48 million homes in the U.S. and Canada, equal to 44% of all cable homes passed. Although a major push to upgrade systems will surely increase cable modem-ready households, it will be 2002 before penetration reaches 70% of American cable passed households.
Despite providers' aggressive rollout of new cable modem services, subscribers have been slow to follow. While significant user growth will take place over the next several years, actual cable modem subscribers will represent a very small percentage of houses actually equipped for the service. By 2003, the analysts estimate there will only be 9.78 million cable modem subscribers versus 73.2 million cable modem-ready homes, or a mere 13.2%.
Yet, the main players in the cable modem game have announced good results. Kinetic Strategies, a technology consultancy, estimates the total number of cable modem subscribers in the U.S. and Canada topped 3 million in the first week of June. This represents a healthy growth of 66% since the end of 1999, or an increase of 1.2 million customers in absolute figures. The worldwide cable modem subscriber total is approximately 4 million.
Cable Internet customers in the U.S. now amount to 2.3 million and Canadian operators count nearly 800,000 subscribers. As a group, North American cable operators are now installing more than 7,500 new cable modem subscribers each day, a 50% gain from the daily run rate at the end of 1999.
Based on current installation run rates, Kinetic Strategies estimates Time Warner Cable leads the industry with 465,000 cable modem customers, followed by AT&T (NYSE:T) Broadband and Internet Services with 370,000, MediaOne (NYSE:UMG) with 325,000, Cox Communications (NYSE:COX) with 305,000, Shaw Communications (NYSE:SJR) with 260,000, Rogers Cablesystems (NYSE:RG) with 240,000, and Charter Communications (NASDAQ:CHTR) with 170,000.
The industry has created two high-speed Internet service providers, called @Home (NASDAQ:ATHM) and Roadrunner. @Home's biggest shareholder is AT&T (NYSE:T), while Roadrunner is owned mainly by Time Warner (NYSE:TWX). Other companies, such as High Speed Access Corp. and SoftNet Systems are offering turnkey Internet packages specifically designed for small cable system operators. Excite@Home and Road Runner continue to dominate the cable modem market, serving an estimated 1.8 million and 875,000 subscribers, respectively.
Excite@Home (NASDAQ:ATHM) has traveled a rough road since the merger between cable modem start-up @Home Network and Web portal Excite closed a year ago. In particular, the company has suffered well-publicized service problems while struggling to keep pace with the addition of 1 million new cable modem customers over the last 12 months - a development that troubled its MSO affiliates.
In the first quarter this year there was a turnaround in @Home culminating in AT&T's increased investment in the company in March and long-term, non-exclusive contract renewals with Cox and Comcast (NASDAQ:CMCSK). Specifically, AT&T extended its distribution relationship with Excite@Home through 2008 and agreed to feature its well-known portal on its cable Internet service through the same period. Excite@Home will also work with AT&T to provide connectivity services to other Internet service providers who want to use AT&T's platform to deliver broadband services to consumers.
Yesterday AT&T (NYSE:T) finalized its purchase of MediaOne, making the telco's Broadband division the nation's largest cable company. Now it has 16 mil. cable customers and a network that stretches past 28 mill homes. However, some analysts have been critical of AT&T's ability to leverage the cable TV infrastructure to reach its main aim - competitive local telephone services. At the end of the first quarter, AT&T counted only 39,500 cable telephone customers.
AT&T Broadband restated its year-2000 growth targets during an industry analyst briefing in May. These targets include 700,000 cable modem subscribers and 400,000 local telephone customers by December 31, 2000. Although AT&T finished the first quarter with less than one-tenth of its year-end cable telephony subscriber target, the company insisted that its 400,000-subscriber goal is achievable. AT&T added 31,000 cable telephone customers in the first quarter and continues to improve its installation run rate.
Another giant, America Online (NYSE:AOL) - the top Internet access and content player, has long been fighting for its respective place in the broadband arena. Although AOL has inked agreements with Bell Atlantic, SBC Communications, and other telco.s to offer a broadband version of its service over high-speed ADSL connections, AOL has not managed to break into the cable market.
The mega-merger of the number-one ISP with Time Warner Inc. turns everything upside down. In one breath America Online seems to have outmanoeuvered both AT&T and Excite@Home, providing itself with a clear path to extend its dominance of the dial-up Internet business into the emerging broadband market.
By merging with Time Warner AOL will gain access to America's largest advanced cable network. Time Warner Cable systems pass 20 million homes and serve 13 million subscribers. Eighty-five percent of Time Warner's plant has been upgraded to two-way, 750 MHz hybrid fiber/coaxial networks and the MSO finished 1999 with more than 300,000 installed cable modem customers to lead the industry.
Time Warner entities own 55 percent of Road Runner, its cable Internet service provider, providing leverage to alter exclusivity requirements in its contracts. Once the AOL-Time Warner deal closes, which is expected at the end of 2000, Time Warner Cable systems will offer a broadband version of AOL, called AOL Plus. Until then, Road Runner has agreed to carry several AOL services, including AOL Instant Messenger, Digital City, AOL Search and AOL MovieFone, as part of its broadband offering.
AOL is now positioned to play the telephony card to its benefit in negotiations with AT&T. Obtaining access to Time Warner's 20 million home footprint is critical to AT&T's cable telephone strategy. AOL Time Warner understands this well and is unlikely to sign an AT&T telephony deal unless AT&T agrees to carry AOL's broadband PC and TV services, potentially requiring a premature termination of AT&T's arrangement with Excite@Home. Then, with Time Warner and AT&T, AOL would gain broadband access to more than 40 million U.S. households. |
