Of the six major DSL providers, two of the biggest are showing signs of a DSL slowdown. BellSouth reported its 3Q earnings today and said that the company had added 176,000 new DSL subscribers, up from 128,000 in second quarter 2006 but down when compared to 205,000 net additions in third quarter of 2005.
AT&T, which is about to gulp down BellSouth had reported a similar slowdown yesterday. AT&T had added 374,000 new DSL customers, which compared poorly with 529,000 net sign-up for the same quarter last year.
It is too soon to read too much into these numbers, at least today. Embarq, Verizon and Qwest have to report their numbers and will perhaps provide a clear indication of where the market is going. It is important to also wait for the cable providers to report their numbers. However, if you were to twist my arm, I would say – the market is getting pretty saturated.
I work for a large regional ISP in the midwest US, and our DSL sales numbers are as high as they’ve been in over 30 months. We re-sell Verizon DSL service, and obviously I can’t speak for other VZ DSL providers, but things are plugging along just fine here. When VZ went from 14.95 to their 17.95 DSL offering (for 768×128 service) we really saw a jump there, as we offer service for just over 25.00 for 768×128. It could be localized growth, customers simply choosing the ‘local provider’ because we’re closer in price than before. Who knows.