Wireline carriers make up a landscape all their own, but it does have AT&T and Verizon’s total domination of the competition in common with the wireless scene. AT&T put all others to shame for the first quarter of this year, while Verizon’s efforts for this quarter amounted to just a bit less than their rival. To be a bit more specific about just how much better AT&T and Verizon did than their competitors this quarter, their total wireline revenues were $39.4 billion and $29.8 billion respectively, while their closest competitor, CenturyLink, didn’t even manage to crack $5 billion, sitting at $4.21 billion. Frontier, the buyer that’s taking over Verizon’s landline business in some areas, pulled down $2.36 billion for the quarter. Windstream rounded out the billionaires’ club with $1.37 billion. From there, a number of regional providers topped the charts.
AT&T and Verizon were the only ones to actually add wireline broadband subscribers back in the fourth quarter of 2016, while CenturyLink didn’t report their adds and losses, and mostly everybody else had a net loss or a negligible net add for wireline. AT&T added some 242,000 customers, while Verizon nabbed 35,000 for that period. AT&T absolutely dwarfed everybody else in the space on net adds and video adds during that time, mostly due to growth in their U-Verse product line’s customer base. Verizon saw modest gains in Fios.
On the wireless side of things, Verizon’s Q1 for this year marked their first net subscriber loss in the history of their wireless operations, but they still managed to post decent revenue. AT&T was in a fairly similar boat this quarter, posting a net subscriber loss alongside their mostly on-par revenue. Verizon fell a tad short of Wall Street forecasts, while AT&T met them despite some stumbling blocks. With multiple cable companies poised to make the jump into the wireless industry in the near future, it will be interesting to see how full-service companies like AT&T and Verizon react to the changes in both markets. Comcast and others getting in on the wireless game may end up causing a mere flash in the pan, so to speak, but anything more will all but require some sort of concerted response from established players.