For at least the eighth time in the past 10 quarters, the baby bells have added more subscribers than the nation's largest cable providers, reports Light Reading. The biggest phone providers added 1.3 million broadband subscribers in the third quarter, compared to 1.2 million for the nation's largest cable providers. For the record, the U.S. has 51 million broadband users, 28.2 million cable customers (slightly less than 56%) and 22.7 million DSL customers (44%).

There's been absurdly differing opinions on when exactly DSL will pull up alongside (or pass) cable in regards to total subscribers. Pew proclaimed that DSL was now even with cable in the States back in June, an analysis that Bruce Leichtman of Leichtman Research proclaimed was "dead wrong." IGI recently predicted that DSL totals would surpass cable by the end of the year.

Apparently none of the industry's experts actually know, so "soon" seems like a reasonable answer based on consistent strong DSL subscriber additions. Globally, DSL dominates: nearly 70% of the world's residential broadband users are on a DSL line.