Leichtman Research Group recently released broadband customer statistics for the end of 2023 for the largest cable and telephone companies. Leichtman compiles most of these numbers from the statistics provided to stockholders other than for Cox and Mediacom, which are estimated and now reported together. Leichtman says this group of companies represents 96% of all US landline broadband customers.
Broadband growth for the fourth quarter is still coming almost entirely from the growth of FWA cellular broadband provided by T-Mobile and Verizon. This is particularly true since AT&T’s smaller FWA growth is buried in its overall numbers. For the quarter, FWA fixed cellular customers grew by 929,000 thousand while telco grew by 28,000 subscribers, and cable companies collectively lost 144,000. The fourth quarter of 2023 might be remembered as the quarter when cable companies started to collectively lose customers while telcos collectively gained customers.
| Annual | |||
| 4Q 2023 | 4Q Change | Change | |
| Comcast | 32,253,000 | (34,000) | (66,000) |
| Charter | 30,588,000 | (61,000) | 155,000 |
| AT&T | 15,288,000 | (8,000) | (98,000) |
| Verizon | 7,650,000 | 38,000 | 166,000 |
| Cox & Mediacom | 7,020,000 | (15,000) | (8,000) |
| T-Mobile FWA | 4,776,000 | 541,000 | 2,130,000 |
| Altice | 4,517,900 | (27,500) | (114,100) |
| Verizon FWA | 3,067,000 | 388,000 | 1,536,000 |
| Frontier | 2,943,000 | 62,000 | 75,000 |
| Lumen | 2,758,000 | (78,000) | (279,000) |
| Windstream | 1,175,000 | 0 | 0 |
| Cable ONE | 1,059,300 | 1,900 | (1,100) |
| Breezeline | 663,286 | (8,476) | (29,184) |
| TDS | 539,800 | 7,200 | 29,800 |
| Consolidated | 393,219 | 6,998 | 25,761 |
| Total | 114,691,505 | 813,122 | 3,522,177 |
| Cable | 76,101,486 | (144,076) | (63,384) |
| Telco | 30,747,019 | 28,198 | (80,439) |
| FWA | 7,843,000 | 929,000 | 3,666,000 |
In the telco sector, Lumen continued to shrink and lost 2.8% of its broadband customers in the quarter. AT&T had a tiny loss, and all other telcos saw growth. Surprisingly, the biggest telco gainer in the fourth quarter was Frontier, which is finally seeing its fiber strategy working.
The only cable company with a tiny growth is Cable One, and every other large cable company lost broadband customers in the fourth quarter.
For the year, the big broadband companies grew by 3.5 million customers, and all of the annual growth came from FWA cellular. As expected, T-Mobile FWA passed Altice in size, and Verizon FWA surpassed Frontier in the fourth quarter. Lumen is the biggest loser, having lost 9.2% of its broadband customers in 2023.