Time Warner Cable today announced that the cable provider is now the nation's third-largest broadband ISP, having just passed the 9 million broadband subscriber mark. They seem to be working from trend projections: Time Warner Cable actually ended 2009 as the country's fourth biggest ISP, their earnings showing 8.9 million broadband subscribers to Verizon's reported 9.2 million customers. Both of course trail AT&T and Comcast, AT&T's earnings indicating that AT&T now serves 15.7 million customers, while Comcast's latest report shows Comcast with 15.9 million broadband users.

"This is a great milestone for Time Warner Cable, and it further proves that our customers enjoy the speed and content our HSD products deliver, as well as the value seen when bundling this service with our video and phone offerings," said Landel Hobbs, COO of Time Warner Cable.

Time Warner Cable and Mr. Hobbs were greatly helped by the fact that Verizon's all but giving up on rural DSL service, either selling or simply ignoring many of these Time Warner Cable markets. Instead, Verizon has made it clear they want to focus on wireless (especially LTE) service and more profitable FiOS markets.

Last we checked Verizon FiOS was available in less than 10% of Time Warner Cable's overall markets, and Time Warner Cable doesn't have to try very hard to lure subscribers that have grown tired of 7 Mbps (or often 3 Mbps or slower) DSL service.

Penetration of AT&T U-Verse is actually higher in Time Warner Cable markets -- approaching 20%. But AT&T's top broadband speeds max out around 24 Mbps at shorter loop lengths, and AT&T's been struggling to get line-bonded VDSL service working.

Once you realize that less than a third of Time Warner Cable's markets see any kind of real next-gen broadband competition (with Verizon's FiOS deployment outside of major cities essentially done for now and AT&T line bonding a perpetual no show), you start to understand why the company's been slower to upgrade to faster DOCSIS 3.0 technology. The faster speeds are only available in portions of New York City, with only 2,000 of Time Warner Cable's 9 million customers signed up for 50 Mbps service.

"High Speed Data continues to be a growing part of our business and we look to keep adding new features and further enhance speeds as we move through 2010," says Hobbs. Though Time Warner Cable has been slow on upgrades we expect several new market launches over the next month or two; one insider tells us faster "Wideband" service should soft launch in upstate New York in a matter of weeks, with a hard launch a month later. Localized upstate New York promotions would seem to confirm this.