Cable companies' worries about subscribers who "cut the cord" (replacing traditional broadcast and cable stations with online video) may be misplaced. New studies indicate that the best online video experience is provided by cable companies, which, by and large, deliver faster download speeds than telephone companies' DSL service or mobile broadband service. BTIG analyst Richard Greenfield said on Monday that it is clear that the cable industry is grabbing a "meaningful share" of broadband subscribers away from telephone companies. "the faster bandwidth consumption escalates, the better the cable industry is positioned," he wrote. The Canadian networking equipment company Sandvine said last week that the volume of Netflix's streaming video climbed 30 percent over the past six months and now represents 24.4 percent of total volume. (That figure is actually up only slightly from the previous six-month period, and some studies expect Netflix's volume to decline during the second half of this year as video competitors challenge the leader.

01/05/2012