| Germany passing 2M Cable Modem Subs |
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Every 3 months, 200K new homes subscribe in Germany to the booming cable business. The sub count at the end of 2008 was 1 19M German homes take cable, about half the country, with video availability over 70%. The service until the last few years was mostly analog TV-only delivered through housing groups and costing only a few dollars. Deutsche Telekom was the leader, with municipal groups also prominent. DT was ordered to separate the cable business and intended to sell to John Malone and Liberty Global. The government stepped in and blocked the deal, amid rumors Malone had agreed with DT to go slow on competition. In 2003. Providence Equity came in instead the group Kabel Deutschland. Kabel BW grew 53% to 415K modem subscribers at the end of Q1 2009. That's still only a small fraction of their 3.5M households, 99% servable with data. The largest, Kabel Deutschland passes 15M homes of which 4M are still old analog systems because owner Providence Equity has a high cost of capital these days. |
.85M, up 87% from the previous year. They now have passed 2M. The pricing is fairly aggressive, such as the 19,90 euro modem + phone package at Kabel BW in Baden-Wuerttemberg. The largest, Kabel Deutschland, currently has a 22,90 special rate for 32 down, 2 up and a phone package. Owner Providence Equity charges 50 euro for a similar package at Spain's Ono. In two years, cable has gone from insignificant to a driver of German broadband.
