Copper Lines Decline as Global Fixed Broadband Lines Top 690M

The latest Q1-2014 global broadband report from UK telecoms analyst Point Topic has revealed that the world is now home to 690.1 million fixed line broadband subscribers (+1.9% in the quarter), which is up from +0.4% recorded at the end of 2013. It’s also the first quarter where the market share for older copper line broadband connections (e.g. ADSL, SDSL) has dipped below 50%.

As usual coppers loss is fibres gain, with both superfast hybrid-fibre (FTTC/N/x) and ultrafast true fibre optic (FTTH/P/B) broadband connections seeming to pick-up the slack as customers migrate to faster connectivity. On the other hand it should be said that many hybrid-fibre solutions, such as FTTC, are actually dependent upon a “last mile” style run of existing copper cable via VDSL connectivity and so the picture is a little more complex.

Never the less, at the current rate of fibre growth and ADSL decline, it looks like hybrid-fibre alone could overtake older style copper connections in around 5 years’ time. This would be a crucial tipping point that could start some operators down the road to phasing out older ADSL services completely.

Elsewhere the latest report also mentions the growth in Internet TV (IPTV) style services (i.e. those purchased from fixed broadband ISPs). Apparently global IPTV subscriptions have now reached 100.9 million, which is up 4.8% (4.6m) in Q1-2014 and thus maintains the fairly steady level of growth from previous quarters.

Interestingly the UK actually shows up on the Top 10 list, which is largely due to the impact of TalkTalk and BT’s respective IPTV and YouView based platforms.

Top 10 IPTV Countries

1. China (32.7m)
2. France (14.8m)
3. USA (12.3m)
4. South Korea (9.1m)
5. Japan (4.5m)
6. Russia (3.6m)
7. Germany (2.7m)
8. United Kingdom (1.9m)
9. Netherlands (1.8m)
10. Vietnam (1.6m)