Click to enlarge

The top cable and telephone service providers that make up about 94 percent of the U.S. market signed more than 2.5 million net additional broadband subscribers in the third quarter alone.

The top 20 cable and telephone providers now account for almost 50.9 million high-speed internet customers, according to the Leichtman Research Group, writes MediaWeek (via MediaBuyerPlanner). Cable has more than 28.1 million broadband subscribers, while telephone has 22.7 million DSL and other broadband subscribers.

Telephone providers saw the most growth in the third quarter of 2006, with the top providers adding 1.33 million broadband subscribers, or about 53 percent of net broadband additions for the quarter. Telephone companies have in fact added more broadband subscribers than cable in each of the last eight quarters. Through the first three quarters of the year, there have been over 7.7 million net broadband additions.

According to the LRG report, the top five cable broadband providers in third quarter are Comcast (net broadband subscriber gain of 536,000), Time Warner (251,000), Cox (75,000), Charter (88,100) and Cablevision (72,438).

The top five telephone providers were AT&T, (net broadband subscriber gain of 374,000), Verizon (448,000), Bell South (176,000), Qwest (175,000) and Embarq (84,000).