We saw the idea of cord cutting entering the realm of entertainment a little more than 15 years ago. This was the idea of forgoing cable television for Internet. As rates for cable (and satellite) got more expensive, people started to cut the cord.
This is now expanding in other ways. We have what is being called "Cord Cutting 2.0". Here is where people are ditching Internet service from the traditional cable operators while opting for other services.
It is something that is starting to have an impact.
Comcast and Spectrum Losing Market Share
Entertainment is not separate from telecommunications. The "pipe" coming into the house is what is crucial. While this is an expensive process, we are seeing disruption.
5G is now eating into the market share. The cable companies have continually raised rates, causing Internet to rival what the television packages were decades ago.
Customers are starting to push back.
Cord Cutting 2.0 is the movement that is seeing Americans ditch their cable TV internet services from companies like Comcast and Spectrum for other options like Fiber and 5G home Internet.
Recently we surveyed more than 1,000 of our readers about what internet service they use. Only 45% of them use internet from a cable TV company. That is down from 51.7% at the end of 2023.
If this is reflective across the entire industry, we are looking at a huge drop in just 9 months.
This comes as Fiber and 5G Home Internet have seen strong growth with cord cutters. Fiber now Accounts for 29.1% of cord cutters, up from 25.5% at the end of 2023. 5G Home Internet also saw growth to 12.8%, which is up from 8.4% at the end of 2023.
Like other industries, as these companies start to lose revenues, their operations suffer. They have a lot of cost in upkeeping their existing system.
Across The Board Disruption
We cover Hollywood a great deal. The distribution of content, i.e. films, is one layer of the stack. However, we have to look deeper to see where things are going.
The success of Starlink, by SpaceX, is well known. Jeff Bezos is looking to match this with Blue Origin.
This is rivaled by the mobile companies. Many of them are offering 5G home Internet. In the United States, this is done by Verizon and T-Mobile.
Another option to watch is Amazon. They reportedly are working on Project Kuiper. It is a home internet service that is powered by thousands of satellites which were launched.
The key here is consumers are getting more choices. Traditionally, telecommunications infrastructure was limited to only a few companies. This was true for local telephone, long distance service, mobile phones, and Internet service.
Like media, we are beginning to see a fragmentation. Do we see someone like Meta or Apple eventually get into something like this? While that is just speculation, it is not the craziest thought in the world.
Eventually, we are likely to see a multiple of telecommunication services offered by the same companies. The barriers are changing. It is likely that the next few years see these satellite carriers also adding phone service.
The stack is also fragmenting.