Top 21 U.S. ISPs by Subscriber: Q2 2005

Pundits are calling it a slow quarter, but broadband ISPs recorded continued subscriber growth.

by Alex Goldman ISP-Planet Managing Editor [August 25, 2005]

Rank	ISP	Subs. (millions)	Date & Source	Market Share
1	America Online (all U.S. AOL brand accounts)	20.8	[August 3, 2005] Trending Schedules	22.2%
2	Comcast (cable broadband)	7.7	[August 2, 2005] Press Release [.pdf]	8.2%
3	SBC (DSL only)	6.0	[April 25, 2005] Press Release	6.4%
4	EarthLink (DSL, dialup, cable, satellite, PLC, and webhosting—SK EarthLink not included)	5.4	[August 9, 2005] SEC 10-Q	5.7%
5	Road Runner (cable broadband)	4.5	[August 3, 2005] Trending Schedules	4.8%
6	Verizon (DSL only)	4.1	[August 8, 2005] SEC 10-Q	4.4%
7	United Online (counting paid dialup only)	3.1	[August 8, 2005] SEC 10-Q	3.3%
8	Cox (cable broadband)	2.8	[August 9, 2005] Press Release	3.0%
9	BellSouth (DSL only)	2.4	[August 3, 2005] SEC 10-Q	2.6%
10	Charter (cable broadband)	2.0	[August 2, 2005] SEC 10-Q	2.2%
11	Cablevision (cable broadband)	1.5	[August 9, 2005] SEC 10-Q	1.6%
12	Qwest (DSL only)	1.2	[August 2, 2005] Press Release	1.3%
13	Covad (broadband only)	.55	[August 5, 2005] SEC 10-Q	0.6%
14	Mediacom (cable broadband, dialup, and SMB broadband)	.43	[August 9, 2005] SEC 10-Q	0.5%
15	Insight BB (cable broadband)	.39	[April 28 , 2005] Press Release	0.4%
16	ALLTEL (DSL only)	.32	[August 9, 2005] SEC 10-Q	0.3%
17	Citizens (DSL only)	.27	[July 29, 2005] Press Release	0.3%
18	Hughes DIRECWAY (satellite broadband)	.26	Jupiter Research estimate	0.3%
19	RCN (Cable broadband and dialup, including Starpower JV)	.23	[August 10, 2005] Press Release	0.2%
20	CenturyTel (DSL only)	.17	[July 28, 2005] Press Release [.pdf]	0.2%
21	Cincinnati Bell (DSL only)	.15	[August 9, 2005] SEC 10-Q	0.2%
22	Other U.S. ISPs	29.5		31.5%

We use Jupiter Research estimates for the total number of subscribers in the United States: 83.7 million subscribers, and we also use Jupiter Research estimates (from its broadband analysis unit) elsewhere as noted above. 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 31, 2005. Note that, due to rounding, the market share percentages in this chart will not always add up to exactly 100.0 percent even though they do for this quarter.

We do not have numbers for ATX, RCN, MSN, and several others. GCI fell off the list because it now has fewer than 100,000 customers.

Note that Insight Broadband plans to go private, acquired by The Carlyle Group and insiders. Adelphia has been acquired by Time Warner and Comcast.

DIRECWAY broadband has had zero marketing dollars for some time and our subscriber numbers for it are an estimate based on out of date data.

We show sources for all numbers.

United Online no longer claims to be an ISP, focusing on the delivery of services such as Classmates.com.

RCN has been restructured and declared subscriber numbers for the first time in a while.

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