ABLE WITH BROADBAND CABLE

In the last four years, the cable industry has spent almost $60 billion on infrastructure buildouts and upgrades, much of which was directly invested in broadband cable and digital networks. Those efforts are starting to show. According to the National Cable & Telecommunications Association's annual review, the growth in broadband cable availability has jumped from 33% to 83% of all U.S. homes since 1999, and the number of cable modem subscribers has increased 2260% in the last four years. At the end of 2002, cable chalked up 11.3 million broadband subscribers. While cable's success is undeniable, the price has been fairly steep so far: about $5180 in improvements per every new customer.

Figure 1: U.S. cable industry infrastructure expenditures

Figure 2: U.S. growth in broadband cable availability

Figure 3: U.S. cable modem subscriber growth

Figure 4: U.S. subscriber growth

Figure 5: 2002 deployment of broadband cable

Figure 6: Broadband cable availability in 2002