Top 23 U.S. ISPs by Subscriber: Q2 2004

The incumbents continue to do well while the CLECs are feeling the pain of regulatory uncertainty. But with the VoIP avalanche on the horizon, everyone is looking over their shoulders.

by Alex Goldman ISP-Planet Managing Editor [September 2, 2004]

Rank	ISP	Subs. (millions)	Date & Source	Market Share
1	America Online (all U.S. AOL brand accounts)	23.4	[July 28, 2004] Trending Schedules [.pdf]	24.8%
2	United Online [3.1 million paid, 3.7 million free accounts]	6.8	[August 4, 2004] Press Release	7.2%
3	Comcast (cable broadband)	6.0	[July 30, 2004] SEC Filing	6.4%
4	EarthLink (DSL, dialup, cable, satellite, and PLC)	5.2	[July 22, 2004] Press Release	5.5%
5	SBC (DSL only)	4.3	[August 5, 2004] SEC Filing	4.5%
6	Road Runner (cable broadband)	3.5	[July 28, 2004] Trending Schedules [.pdf]	3.8%
7	Verizon (DSL only)	2.9	[August 6, 2004] SEC Filing	3.1%
8	Cox (cable broadband)	2.2	[July 29, 2004] Press Release	2.3%
9	Charter (cable broadband and 7,800 dialup accounts)	1.7	[August 9, 2004] SEC Filing	1.8%
10	BellSouth (DSL only)	1.7	[August 2, 2004] SEC Filing	1.8%
11	Adelphia (cable broadband)	1.2	Jupiter Research estimate	1.3%
12	Cablevision (cable broadband)	1.2	[August 9, 2004] SEC Filing	1.3%
13	Qwest (DSL only)	.85	[August 3, 2004] Press Release	0.9%
14	Covad (broadband only)	.51	[July 30, 2004] SEC Filing	0.5%
15	Mediacom (cable broadband)	.33	[August 9, 2004] SEC Filing	0.3%
16	Insight BB (cable broadband)	.27	[August 2, 2004] SEC Filing	0.3%
17	Hughes DIRECWAY (satellite broadband)	.22	Jupiter Research estimate	0.2%
18	ALLTEL (DSL only)	.20	[August 6, 2004] SEC Filing	0.2%
19	Citizens (DSL only)	.16	[August 3, 2004] Press Release [.pdf]	0.2%
20	LocalNet (dialup and cable broadband)	.12	[August 17, 2004] Corporate Communications	0.1%
21	Cincinnati Bell (DSL only)	.12	[July 28, 2004] Press Release	0.1%
22	CenturyTel (DSL only)	.10	[July 29, 2004] Press Release [.pdf]	0.1%
23	GCI (cable broadband and dialup)	.10	[July 27, 2004] Press Release [.pdf]	0.1%
24	Other U.S. ISPs	31.0		33.0%

We use Jupiter Research estimates for the total number of subscribers in the United States: 80.1 million subscribers. This number is a preliminary estimate, and a different number may be released at a later date to Jupiter Research subscribers. This number does not include: subscribers at work, at universities, or in government. It only includes residential consumer accounts.

All subscriber counts are as of June 30, 2004.

We have added Citizens Communications thanks to Dave Burstein of DSL Prime, who pointed out that the company has a significant number of DSL customers.

We do not have numbers for ATX, RCN, MSN, and AT&T Worldnet. In addition, Covad and the ILECs did not disclose dialup subscriber numbers (although Charter and others did).

Two ISPs that are restructuring, RCN and ATX, remain off the list. Troubled Internet America, which filed year end results late, is also off the list due to a new cutoff point: you need 100,000 subscribers to make the list today.

Although we do report claimed Adelphia numbers, we continue to believe that whoever buys Adelphia will find out how many subscribers they really have.

We show sources for all numbers. Where the source says "Corporate Communications" we mean that we contacted the company directly. These numbers are less reliable than the other numbers we use.

We use Jupiter Research estimates for two ISPs and for the total number of U.S. households online. Jupiter Research has additional estimates which are available to the company's subscribers.

Note that, due to rounding, the market share percentages in this chart may not add up to exactly 100.0 percent.

We have started to see VoIP customer counts reported in press releases and SEC filings. If you would like to see this data, or would like to express any comments about the data we present here, contact us at the e-mail link in the footer of this page.

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