US broadband market reaching saturation, analyst warns cable investors
Coming off a record third quarter during which they added around 790,000 broadband subscribers, cable operators have been warned by MoffettNathanson analyst Craig Moffett not to get too excited about their prospects for continued growth. "Broadband in the United States is rapidly approaching saturation, and the pool of legacy DSL subscribers from which cable has recently drawn so much market share is rapidly declining," Moffett said. According to Moffett, as of the end of 2013, there were slightly less than 6 million DSL customers in the US who had download speeds of less than 3 Mbps, and that number is likely much lower today. Meanwhile, he said that residential wireline broadband service is available in 96 percent of US households, and actually penetrated into about 81 percent of them. "We are approaching the ceiling," Moffett noted.