Global Broadband Lines Top 123Million
Posted: 17th Sep, 2004 By: MarkJ
The latest research from Point Topic states that the number of broadband lines worldwide increased by almost 55% to over 123 million in the 12 months to 30th June 2004. Typically xDSL lines grew fastest of all:
DSL lines increased by over 30 million, or 66%, to 78 million. Cable modem and other broadband lines increased by nearly 13 million, or 39%, to 45 million. One big feature of the market in the last year is the growth of broadband services over fibre, so called 'Fibre-to-the-building', FTTB, or FTTx to cover all the options. The FTTx share of 'other broadband' lines accounted for 9 million lines by 30 June, or 7.3%. Other technologies, mainly fixed wireless access and satellite, accounted for less than 0.3% of the total.
The USA is still well in the lead as the world's biggest broadband country, with over 29 million lines. China as growing faster but still 10 million lines behind. Growth in Japan is starting to level off and Korea is already almost static in total broadband numbers. Germany, Canada and France are all very close together with about 5.1 million lines each while the UK is about 750,000 lines behind, but growing faster. Italy has now overtaken Taiwan to be ninth out of the top ten, so the world's top nine broadband countries are now the top seven economies plus China and South Korea.
In terms of broadband penetration per 100 population, the statistics show that Korea is no longer so very far ahead of the rest of the world as it used to be. With 21 broadband lines per 100 people, Hong Kong is coming close to Korea's 24.4. Denmark, Canada, the Netherlands, Taiwan and Switzerland are already in the 15 lines per 100 area. In these countries at least, broadband is established as a mature market and in sight of saturation.
Latest UK ISP News
Cheap BIG ISPs for 100Mbps+
Cheapest ISPs for 100Mbps+