Top 23 U.S. ISPs by Subscriber: Q2 2008

This was the worst quarter for subscriber growth in the seven years we've been tracking these numbers. For the first time ever, the subscriber total of the ISPs on our list declined.

by Alex Goldman ISP-Planet Managing Editor [August 29, 2008]

The end of growth
The top five ISPs in our list (counting Time Warner twice) have a combined market share of 55.8 percent. If the sleepy FCC were to allow just one or two more mega-mergers, the clock would have wound back to the Bell era, and the U.S. would stop innovating as the rest of the world grows.

The Bell companies did particularly poorly this quarter, and lost a little ground to cable.

Verizon appeared to lose subscribers but claims subscriber growth. This press release from April 22, 2008 (Q1, 2008) claims 8.5 million subscribers including 1.8 million FiOS, and this press release from July 28, 2008 (Q2, 2008) claims growth but this (.xls) speadsheet shows 8.33 million subscribers, including 2 million FiOS. This discrepancy may be due to Verizon's copper firesale. It's selling off subscribers, not lying to the world.

Subscriber number expert Bruce Leichman, president and principal analyst for Leichtman Research Group, Inc, reports that the phone companies may no longer care about DSL. "Net broadband additions in the quarter were the fewest of any quarter in the seven years LRG has been tracking the industry. While the relative number of quarterly broadband adds has certainly peaked, the decline in additions this quarter compared to the same period last year was exacerbated by Verizon and AT&T's emphasis on selling higher speed FiOS and U-verse bundled services, often at the expense of the traditional DSL service."

The subscriber totals on our list have changed dramatically before, but only when ISPs stopped disclosing dialup or ISDN lines. This is the first ever true decline in subscriber numbers of the ISPs on our list.

Data
We use Jupiter Research estimates in several areas (note, Jupiter Research is now part of JupiterKagan). Jupiter Research estimated the total number of subscribers in the United States to be 91.7 million subscribers at the end of Q2, 2007, and we do not have more recent data. Note, however, that more recent data is available to Jupiter Research subscribers.

This number does not include: subscribers at universities and in government.

It includes residential consumer accounts and some business accounts (the distinction is eroding as residential broadband speeds rise and telework grows).

Notes
SBC reported 4.108 million ISDN business lines in its annual report but did not report ISDN business lines in its most recent quarterly report. Those 4 million lines by themselves account for 4 percent of the U.S. market and account for more subscribers than any ISP outside the top five.

Insight Communications saw its subscriber numbers drop sharply as it dissolved a partnership with Comcast.

Off the list
Cox is no longer reporting subscriber numbers.

RCN is reporting "Revenue Generating Units" as opposed to subscriber numbers, and has therefore been removed from the list for failing to report subscriber numbers.

Covad was acqired [.pdf] by private equity. It no longer reports numbers and has been removed from the list.

Methodology
Subscriber counts are as of June 30, 2008.

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 several key ISPs. Therefore, the "Other ISPs" listing overstates the role of the independent ISP in the U.S. market.

We show sources for all data.

Also see page 2: How We Count >