Total Global Broadband Internet Connections Reach 597 Million in 2011

The Broadband Forum and UK telecoms analyst firm Point Topic have today reported that the world added 65.49 Million new broadband ISP lines in 2011 and ended the year (Q4-2011) with a global total of 597 Million. Sadly quarterly growth was down from 3.08% in Q3-2011 to just 2.6% in Q4.

Asia remains unchallenged as the largest broadband region in the world with 254.7 Million broadband lines, while it also showed the strongest growth (3.19% in the quarter and 16.4% for the full year); thanks in no small part to China’s boom. Meanwhile Europe and the rest of the world follow someway behind and the UK has been pushed down from 6th to 7th place by Russia’s growth spurt.

As usual DSL based broadband technologies (e.g. ADSL, ADSL2+ etc.) continue to be the dominant ISP connectivity solution and account for a whopping 60.8% of the overall market, although this is down from 61.5% in Q3-2011. Elsewhere Cable Modem (e.g. Virgin Media) based services held at 19.4%, which is largely unchanged from 19.5% in Q3.

Much of the DSL share appears to have been cannibalised by a new generation of superfast fibre optic (FTTH / FTTP) and hybrid fibre (FTTC) broadband services, which reached a combined total of 16.7% (up from 16% in Q3). Meanwhile Satellite services saw a tiny growth to 1.9% (up from 1.8% in Q3) and the rest barely even registered.

Separately IPTV (broadband internet TV) service subscribers now total 58.2 Million after having grown from 54.4 million in Q3.