Ding-dong, is DSL dead?

Has DSL heard its last hurrah in the United States? Second quarter earnings reports from AT&T and Verizon would indicate something’s amiss after the two telcos reported a combined 100,000 new broadband subscribers in the quarter compared to 688,000 a year ago.

Part of the issue may simply be saturation of the market. After years of 20-plus percent growth since 2004, Goldman Sachs analysts say the norm may be closer to 5 percent through 2011. Part may also be attributed to a housing malaise that’s keeping consumers from spending on anything that smacks of non-essential. The other, duh, is bandwidth. Consumers want more and, right now, cablecos can promise more than telcos with DSL offerings.

Verizon said its FiOS gains—187,000 new subs--offset its DSL losses of 133,000 users. AT&T is seeing similar churn to its U-verse offering. As both continue to expand into new markets, it’ll be interesting to see if they can steal back some cable defectors.

Also of interest will be Comcast’s second quarter results, due out tomorrow.

For more:
- See the story [1] at Silicon Alley Insider

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