Intellectual Property Law

Top Telcos Lose a Steady 2.3 to 2.6 Million Lines/Qtr.

By Cynthia Brumfield

The top four incumbent telcos in the U.S., AT&T, Verizon, Qwest and Embarq, seem fated to lose around 2.3 to 2.6 million local access lines per quarter, a very consistent and curiously tight range. According to my analysis of the Q4 07 results from these companies, the group lost a combined 2.53 million local access lines during that quarter, compared to 2.55 million in Q3 07, 2.64 million in Q2 07, 2.28 million in Q1 07, 2.3 million in Q4 06 and on and on.

As the chart above shows, the erosion in the phone companies' traditional customer base has occurred on a weirdly steady basis. I really can't think of why we haven't seen either spurts or sudden slow-downs in losses. It's just a continual drip, drip, drip of around 2.3 million to 2.6 million access lines lost.

A solid trend that emerged for the telcos during Q4 07: a seemingly permanent slow-down in broadband access line gains. As the chart above shows, the four telcos added 816,000 net new high-speed customers during Q4 07, down from 1.2 million net broadband gains during Q4 06 and a 916,000 net new high-speed customer gains for Q3 07.

Full post as published by IP Democracy on March 04, 2008 (boomark / email).