The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has released reports on Internet Access Services and Local Telephone Competition which summarize information about subscribership, technologies, and service characteristics of Internet access services and telephone services, respectively, as of December 31, 2013. The Internet Access Services report summarizes information about Internet access connections over 200 kilobits per second (kbps) in at least one direction, as reported on FCC Forms 477 by telephone companies, cable system operators, terrestrial wireless service providers (fixed and mobile), satellite service providers, and other facilities-based providers. A few of the main findings include the following:
- The number of Internet connections over 200 kbps in at least one direction increased by 12% from December 2012 to 293 million.
- In December 2013, there were 78 million fixed and 133 million mobile connections with download speeds at or above 3 megabits per second (Mbps) and upload speeds at or above 768 kbps, compared to 65 million fixed and 65 million mobile connections at those speeds in December 2012.
- The number of Internet connections with downstream speeds of at least 10 Mbps increased by 104% from December 2012, from 60 million to 122 million connections (64 million fixed connections and 58 million mobile connections).
Data in the Local Telephone Competition report are derived from FCC Forms 477 submitted by incumbent local exchange carriers (ILECs), competitive local exchange carriers (CLECs), interconnected VoIP providers, and mobile wireless providers. Unsurprisingly, the report shows continued growth in subscribership to interconnected VoIP and mobile services and continued decline in subscribership to traditional wireline telephone services. A few of the main findings include the following:
- For voice services, there were 85 million end-user switched access lines in service, 48 million interconnected VoIP subscriptions, and 311 million mobile voice subscriptions (444 million total retail local telephone service connections) as of December 31, 2013.
- Over the three years between December 2010 and December 2013, interconnected VoIP subscriptions increased at a compound growth rate of 15 percent, mobile voice subscriptions increased at a compound annual growth rate of 3 percent, and retail switched access lines declined at 10 percent a year.
