The largest cable and wireline U.S. phone providers gained 890,000 net additional broadband internet subscribers in Q2, the most of any June quarter in a decade, reported Leichtman Research Group Wednesday. Top broadband providers now have 107.4 million subscribers: 74.7 million for cable companies and 32.7 million for wireline phone companies, said LRG. CenturyLink/Lumen (62,000), Frontier (22,000) and Consolidated (4,522) had subscriber losses in the quarter vs. gains by Comcast (354,000), Charter (400,000), Cox (50,000), AT&T (46,000) and Verizon (70,000). Top broadband providers added 8 million subscribers over the past two years, including about 4.3 million net adds over the past year, said Principal Analyst Bruce Leichtman.

T-Mobile’s fiber pilot in New York City (see 2108110056) likely won’t be a major growth driver for the already quick growing provider, but it shows the company “looking for different strategies to target broadband markets in different geographies,” New Street’s Jonathan Chaplin told investors Thursday. T-Mobile is working with Pilot Fiber, a small provider serving about 600 buildings, he said. “The economics of wholesaling someone else’s infrastructure won’t be great, but it will help T-Mobile compete against cable and the incumbents where they are integrated, potentially helping retention and lowering churn,” he said: “We don't think this will be a major driver of value for T-Mobile,” but it “may help feed share gains in wireless.”

Incoming New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) understands the state’s broadband challenges, including through her experience as chair of the Regional Economic Development Councils, emailed Ana Rua, who heads Crown Castle government affairs-New York city and state. Hochul “has publicly acknowledged that online access is a necessity, not a luxury -- a fact that has only grown more significant over the past year,” said Rua, previously broadband director at New York Empire State Development. New York state observers said the sudden gubernatorial transition could affect how the state spends federal broadband dollars (see 2108110037).

T-Mobile quietly launched a “very limited” fiber internet pilot in New York City to supplement fixed wireless coverage, a spokesperson confirmed. The program serves Manhattan residential buildings "to deliver home internet over fiber-optic lines, using a local fiber provider’s fiber-optic network,” the spokesperson said: “Our fixed wireless service will continue to be our flagship home internet offering. It’s available to millions of Americans today and is rapidly expanding.”

Demand for 5G fixed wireless access will be the fastest growing of all residential broadband segments over the next six years, increasing at a 71% compound annual growth rate, to 58 million subscribers globally in 2026, reported ABI Research on Wednesday. It estimates the residential broadband market exceeded 1.1 billion subscribers in 2020, increasing 4% from 2019, it said. Though COVID-19 accelerated demand for broadband connectivity, “the need for high-capacity residential broadband will remain strong, even after the pandemic recovery,” said ABI.

Rebounding in-flight connectivity helped Viasat grow, though the company is "still well below pre-pandemic business levels," CEO Rick Baldridge told analysts Thursday on results for fiscal Q1 ended June 30. Satellite services revenue was $274 million, up 36% year over year, with commercial air activity picking up, it said. It expects revenue growth for the rest of the fiscal year due in part to passenger traffic trends. Overall revenue was $665 million, up $135 million. The stock closed 8.5% higher at $52.16.

SpaceX's Starlink broadband service tops geostationary operators HughesNet and Viasat, though all three satellite operators fall short of the median download speeds for fixed broadband providers, Ookla's Speedtest said Wednesday. It said its Q2 data, based on millions of Speedtest user tests, showed Starlink had "fixed-broadband-like latency figures and median download speeds fast enough to handle most of the needs of modern life," with 97.23 Mbps download, compared with HughesNet's 19.73 Mbps and Viasat's 18.13 Mbps. It said Q2 U.S. media download speed for all fixed providers was 115.22 Mbps. It said only Starlink had median latency "anywhere near" fixed broadband in Q2, at 45 milliseconds vs. fixed broadband's 14 milliseconds.

Japan's Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications OK'd Iridium Certus broadband, Iridium controller-pilot data link communications and other aeronautical services for aviation, and Iridium's global maritime distress and safety system service, Iridium said Monday.

SpaceX's Starlink satellite broadband service has 1,740 satellites in orbit, about 90,000 users in 12 countries and more than 500,000 deposits or orders globally, company representatives told FCC International Bureau staffers, per a filing Monday. It said its planned 29,988 second-generation satellites (see 2005270010) would have faster speeds and lower latency, serve more customers and have more backhaul capacity. It said the second-generation satellites would have at most a 3.43-year orbital decay time.

The International Space Station will host a demo of SpaceLink's high-capacity communications network between space and the ground, the company said Monday. It said this will validate use of a 10 Gbps optical terminal for voice, video and data exchange among ISS crew, onboard systems, experiments and terrestrial users. SpaceLink CEO David Bettinger said the demo's funding by the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space, which manages the ISS U.S. National Laboratory, "marks an important milestone in SpaceLink’s roadmap to providing massive bandwidth for organizations that need real-time connectivity between space and the ground.”