Latest in Broadband

UPDATED with reports of some customers having service restored. Before Comcast can come back to the bargaining table with a new offer for 21st Century Fox assets, it will likely need to get its broadband service back up and running. As the battle with Disney over Fox continues, the No. 1 U.S. cable provider is dealing…

The number of broadband-only households in the U.S. will grow to 37.2 million by 2022, up from 19 million in 2017, according to a new report from Kagan. That trend will only amplify industry angst about cord-cutting and the management of the traditional TV bundle. "A perfect storm of long-term trends including…

2ND UPDATE, 5:29 PM: President Donald Trump has signed into law Senate Joint Resolution 34, which “nullifies the Federal Communications Commission's rule on privacy of customers of broadband and other telecommunications services.” The move was expected after the Senate and the House passed bills scrapping an Obama…

What a difference two months make. In late January, SNL Kagan forecaster Tony Lenoir made what he deemed an “aggressive” prediction when he said that the number of homes subscribing to broadband — but not pay TV — could grow 83% from the end of 2016 to 28.0 million in 2021. Now he says the prediction “could end on the…

Updated with Clyburn and McSweeny statements: Looks like you can forget about the rules the FCC approved in October to bar Internet providers from monitoring the sites you visit, unless you give permission to do so. Recently named FCC Chairman Ajit Pai wants to stay the initiative before March 2, and try to match the…

AT&T isn’t the only communications company eager to acquire. This morning CenturyLink, a broadband services company that also provides video to about 318,000 customers, agreed to pay cash and stock worth $34 billion (including debt) for Level 3 Communications, an important provider of internet backbone services. “The…

Internet providers will be barred from monitoring the sites that subscribers visit, unless they give permission to do so, in a rule that FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler plans to present to fellow commissioners on October 27. Cable and phone companies would have to tell customers what information they collect, how they use…

It’s possible as content providers plan a massive Internet data dump on Tuesday, one that could break traffic records and put ISPs and WiFi networks to the test. “We're going to see long download times, more buffering of streams, more QoS issues and ISPs that will take steps to deal with the traffic, knowing it will…

Here’s an an example of why Comcast EVP David Cohen is so valuable to the company. In a statement today, the smooth point person for the cable giant’s planned acquisition of Time Warner Cable made it seem like Comcast is on the same page with FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler — even after a speech yesterday that looked to some…

Look out cable operators: Most people only have two choices for broadband service — and when it comes to the speedy connections modern families need there’s “simply no competitive choice for most Americans,”  FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said today in a major speech. He wants to change that. And while he didn’t call for…

The trend lines have been headed toward each other for years and finally crossed in Q2: Cable companies had 49.915M broadband subs and 49.910M video ones at the end of June, Leichtman Research Group President Bruce Leichtman reports this morning. “With the addition of more than 30M broadband subscribers over the past…

Consumers of DSL services have the most reason to complain according to data in the FCC’s fourth Measuring Broadband America report out today. The study says that during the evening when usage is highest, 95% of Verizon DSL customers received an average of 42% of the company’s advertised download speed — the worst…