As I've said before, and as evidenced by AT&T’s and Verizon’s recent reporting, the days of consistent double-digit broadband growth are probably behind us.  The US market is rapidly maturing--we are estimating 63% household broadband penetration by year-end-- and the new customer pool is dwindling. 

Q3 was a fairly flat quarter for the Telcos in terms of subscriber growth, and we expect to see similar results from Comcast and TWC when they report next week.  We estimate sequential subscriber growth for each to be just around 1%, bringing Comcast's total broadband base to around 15.4 million, and Time Warner's to near 8.9 million.

The name of the game for service providers today is mitigating churn--that is, holding on to what they've got.  Research we recently fielded in the US market (to be published soon) showed that Americans report very high satisfaction with their current service provider (75% are "somewhat" or "very satisfied".  That said, when presented with a compelling competitive offer (20% price discount or doubling in speed), roughly two-thirds would jump ship.