To: Bill Harmond who wrote (8327 ) 8/14/2001 7:14:03 PM From: Mark Fowler Respond to of 57684 Survey: Home Internet Service Via Cable Jumps WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The number of subscribers getting high-speed access to the Internet through their cable television line jumped by almost a million during the second quarter, the National Cable and Telecommunications Association said on Monday. The 920,000 new subscribers brings the total number of U.S. cable modem users to more than 5.5 million, about 8.5 percent of the 65 million homes able to receive the service, the industry group said, citing a survey of its members. Cable operators also signed up another 1.3 million digital video subscribers during the second quarter, bringing the total to 12.2 million customers, according to the survey. ``Cable operators are continuing a very aggressive deployment of advanced digital services,'' NCTA President and Chief Executive Roberts Sachs said in a statement. In a relatively new foray for the cable industry, more than 200,000 people signed up for residential telephone service via their cable operator during the second quarter, the industry group said. There are now about 1.3 million such subscribers. Cable operators hold a growing lead over their fierce competitors for the high-speed Internet customer, the local telephone companies. AT&T Broadband, the nation's biggest cable operator, had 1.3 million customers at the end of the second quarter while AOL Time Warner Inc., the nation's No. 2 cable provider, reported 1.4 million subscribers at the end of the second quarter through its Road Runner cable modem service. Comparatively, Verizon Communications, the nation's biggest local phone company, had 840,000 digital subscriber line Internet service customers, while No. 2 local phone company SBC Communications Inc. had just over 1 million.