Verizon reported its first-quarter earnings this morning, with most things going as expected. Wireless is booming (1.5 million net additions, 13 percent revenue growth), FiOS TV’s demand seems to be picking up (263,000 new subscribers, putting the total at 1.2 million), and not surprisingly, the company saw accelerated decline in the number of wireline customers. During the quarter, the company lost 762,000 residential lines and about 186,000 lines.
In other words, there is a renewed urgency around FiOS offerings. The fiber broadband and TV offerings can help overcome some of the line losses. During the quarter, the company added 266,000 new broadband connections — 262,000 of which came from FiOS Internet service. The company had a total of 8.5 million connections: 6.7 million DSL-based Verizon High Speed Internet connections and 1.8 million FiOS Internet connections.
What that means is that Verizon’s DSL growth is all but over. At the end of 2007, the company had 8.2 million subscribers. Of the 300,000 new subscribers Verizon added in the first quarter of 2008, 262,000 are FiOS fiber subscribers. That leaves 38,000 DSL subscribers — or roughly 12,600 new additions per month. At present, FiOS Internet is available for sale to 7.9 million premises. Penetration for the service averaged 22.9 percent across all markets.
Verizon, like many other carriers, is in a race against time: It is critical for the phone companies to keep people talking on their lines if they want to sell them broadband and video services in the future.
