Page 35 - PCCAJournal3rdQuarter2011

PCCA Journal|3 rd Quarter 2011 35

Key Subscriber Milestones Passed as Telcos and Cablecos Battle It Out I

n the battle between the tele-communications and cable TV industries, cable service provid-ers are pulling ahead of telecoms service providers. According to data from TeleGeography’s GlobalComms Pay-TV research service, in Q2 2011, the number of IPTV subscribers worldwide exceeded 50 million as telcos continued striving to exploit their fixed broadband customer base to gain a piece of the lucrative pay-TV market. While telcos have some cause to be pleased with the progress of their IPTV initiatives, cable-cos around the world surpassed a larger milestone in the second quarter of 2011: in aggregate cablecos now have more than 100 million broadband subscribers (and more than 65 million voice sub-scribers) on their networks. “Cablecos’ broadband and voice subscriber wins at the expense of telcos far outnumber their pay-TV subscriber losses due to IPTV, and ARPUs for both broadband and voice are more than double that of IPTV,” TeleGeography’s John Dinsdale said. “There are differ-ences by region, but globally, cablecos’ expansion into telecoms markets has had a transformational impact on their growth and financial performance, while the impact of IPTV for telcos has been only marginal.”

TeleGeography’s GlobalComms Pay-TV

research service tracks IPTV, cable, and DTH subscribers for 530 service provid-ers in more than 170 countries. It also provides five-year subscriber forecasts

and statistical analysis of competition between telcos and cablecos.

For more information, go to www. telegeography.com.

For more information on the Power & Communication Contractors Association, its members, services, and

meetings, visit www.pccaweb.org.