Cable’s toughest broadband battles to center on the suburbs

With billions being poured into fiber builds, cable broadband players face the very real prospect of heightened subscriber competition in the coming years. However, the fiercest fights for customers might not be in dense urban areas as one might expect, but instead in the surrounding suburbs. Michael Hollobow, principal at consulting company Winset Group, notes that while AT&T, Verizon and Altice USA have announced high-profile fiber expansions, some of the biggest fiber-to-the-home projects are actually being undertaken by Tier 2 and Tier 3 operators. Accounting for these builds, the rise of 5G and satellite broadband and the fact that dense urban markets are already highly competitive, Hollobow predicted suburban areas will be the next battleground. Though 5G isn’t yet a threat due to the limited propagation of mmWave spectrum and the limited bandwidth offered by low-band airwaves, that could soon change as operators deploy prime C-Band spectrum. Hollobow also noted satellite broadband may become a threat in the near term as well as it begins offering service that is “good enough” to pick off subscribers in underserved or uncompetitive markets.