Providing Market Intelligence for 40 Years

In The News

Report: Over 12M U.S. homes eliminated their fixed broadband

Fixed broadband service providers may want to reconsider their price plans and improve their customer service if they want to keep their customers from cutting the cord.

According to a new report from Parks Associates, more than 12 million U.S. households have cancelled their home broadband service and now only use mobile broadband for their Internet. And another 3 million U.S. households have never had a home Internet subscription.

Parks Associates found that the reason 12 million home broadband customers cut the cord is due to the high cost of a subscription. Other factors included slow speeds and poor customer service.

Kristen Hanich, senior analyst with Parks Associates recommended some strategies that broadband providers can use to stop the bleeding. “Service providers can deploy a number of strategies, including increasing speed and delivering a device that improves Wi-Fi coverage, in order to protect their customer base,” she said.

Because 94% of U.S. homes with fixed broadband use Wi-Fi in their homes, Parks said that broadband providers should offer products such as smart Wi-Fi and mesh networking to improve Wi-Fi coverage. Those products would act as incentives to stop customers from churning. The report found that 75% of customers that were thinking of leaving said they would stay if their current provider offered these solutions.

Because so many members of households are engaged in remote work and remote school due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Parks said that it is particularly critical to improve the customer experience right now as so many customers are focused on their broadband speeds.

Parks found that in September 2020 9% of U.S. broadband households upgraded their home broadband service and 80% of those said that the Covid-19 crisis was the reason for the upgrade. “Good performance during the Covid-19 crisis has improved customers’ opinion of their service providers, but there were dips throughout the year, indicating that providers need to continue to deliver on customer service and innovate in value-added offerings in order to grow and maintain their subscriber base,” Hanich added.

From the article "Report: Over 12M U.S. homes eliminated their fixed broadband" by Sue Marek.

Previously In The News

Apple TV is losing badly to Roku and Amazon in the living room, survey finds

Apple TV is continuing to lose ground to Roku and Amazon in the living room, a survey by Parks Associates has found. The consumer research company sampled 10,000 US homes and based its results on thos...

Opportunities abound in video storage as DIY camera installs take off

"Sales of networked cameras will reach seven million units in 2019," said Dina Abdelrazik, Senior Analyst, Parks Associates. "Retailers like Best Buy have helped boost the profile of this product cate...

4K And HDR Won’t Save Apple TV: Here’s How The Company Can Turn Things Around

Who knows? Maybe the Apple TV has appeal. But the numbers show otherwise. According to new data from research firm Parks Associates, 37 percent of all streaming devices in the United States were made...

PayPal’s Popular But Apple Is The Class Favorite

PayPal is the number one mobile payment app in the U.S., according to research by Parks Associates and by quite a margin. NFC World reported that 12 percent of those polled prefer PayPal while retail-...