The Bell companies are still on track to overtake cable in broadband deployment by the end of this year, according to an industry analyst.

Clifford Holliday of Iniformation Gatekeepers Inc. has been saying in his quarterly assessments that the Bell companies are adding DSL subscribers at a pace that wipes out cable's one-time two-to-one leadership position in U.S. broadband deployment. Based on the first quarter numbers, he's sticking to that prediction.

"It is pretty much trending the way I expectred," Holliday said. "Cable picked up a little bit this quarter but not a lot. The way Verizon and AT&T are going, they are just killing them. My real impression is that the telcos are just under-pricing them to death. I would be extremely surprised if the cable companies are able to stop this onslaught."

The telephone companies now have about 44% of the broadband market, up from one-third of the market two years ago. While cable added just under 1.1 million cable modem subscribers in the first quarter, the four U.S. Bell companies and Bell Canada added almost 2.7 million subscribers.

BellSouth had its best DSL sales quarter ever, and both AT&T and Verizon posted their second-best DSL sales record for a quarter, Holliday said.