Posted: 20th Jan, 2005 By: MarkJ
Forrester Research has projected that Europe will be home to a staggering 71million broadband connections by the year 2010. This equates to 41% of the population:
In the first half of 2004, the company said, market growth was strong in France, Italy and the United Kingdom--up 34 percent, 45 percent and 38 percent, respectively.
"Massive price cuts are leading to a rapidly declining broadband premium," Lars Godell, principal analyst at Forrester, said in a statement. "This, combined with a continued strong supplier push, provides a major incentive to the consumer to make the switch to broadband."
Residential broadband penetration will be 54 percent in the Netherlands by 2010, Forrester said, while Europe's Big Five economies (France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom) will see penetration of between 35 percent and 45 percent. The growth in the Netherlands will be driven by online consumers, competition and falling broadband prices. In other European markets, lower online penetration and higher broadband prices will hamper growth, the study said.The
ZDNet item notes that xDSL continues to be the dominant technology of choice for operators and ISP's, a trend that's expected to continue.