The top 17 ISPs added nearly 1.2 million broadband subscriptions in the first quarter, according to Leichtman Research Group, with cable companies accounting for 86 percent of that growth.
The LRG report comes as Comcast (NASDAQ: CMCSA), the No. 1 cable company, is seeing broadband subscribers surpass video customers for the first time. Comcast added a whopping 407,000 Internet users in Q1, accounting for the lion's share of the more than 1 million broadband subs added by cable operators in Q1.
Leichtman's survey tracks the top ISPs covering 94 percent of the market. The 1.2 million net adds were on par with Q1 2014.
The leading ISPs now control 88.5 million subscribers, the research company says, and cable operators own 53 million of those customers.
Telco providers, led by AT&T (NYSE: T), Verizon (NYSE: VZ) and CenturyLink (NYSE: CTL), control the other 35.5 million.
"This was the first quarter with over a million net broadband adds for cable since 1Q 2008," said Bruce Leichtman, president and principal analyst for LRG. "Cable also accounted for 90 percent of the 3 million broadband additions over the past year, growing their market share versus telcos back to 60 percent for the first time in nearly a decade."
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