The End is Coming for Telco Broadband Subscriber Losses, But Cable Will Do Just Fine

After years of broadband subscriber losses, larger telecom companies are poised to see subscriber gains in the 2023 to 2024 time frame, according to researchers at investment bank Cowen. This will occur as the telecom companies complete “record-setting” fiber broadband deployments. But the cable companies’ broadband market share will decline only slightly, from 60 percent today to 58 percent in 2027, the researchers argue. Meanwhile, the size of the broadband market will increase. The researchers estimate that the telcos will build broadband to 38 million homes by 2026 when they will have fiber broadband available to 80 million homes. By 2025, Cowen expects 75 percent of net broadband additions to be served by fiber-to-the-home. The researchers also note that cable infrastructure supports an “affordable pathway” to 10 Gbps speeds to compete with fiber broadband and that the total addressable broadband market will expand as broadband becomes increasingly critical and as $130 billion or so in government funding becomes available for broadband. The researchers predict 97 percent broadband take rates for occupied homes (90 percent of total homes) by 2027.