Research firm Point Topic has released its latest World Broadband Statistics Report for the fourth quarter of 2008, highlighting a worldwide growth in broadband ISP subscribers of 3.47% between Q3 and Q4 2008. This represents a decrease in broadband growth over the Q2 to Q3 period, which grew by 4.15% (total 398m).

Global broadband population penetration was 7.1% by the end of 2008 (Q4), up 16% on the same time a year ago when it was 6.1% and up almost 3% on the previous quarter (Q3) when it was 6.9%. Meanwhile the regional share of broadband subscribers has remained largely unchanged from Q3:

Western Europe - 25.73% (Q4)
North America - 21.53% (Q4)
South and East Asia - 22.76% (Q4)
Asia-Pacific - 15.40% (Q4)
Latin America - 6.33% (Q4)
Eastern Europe - 5.34% (Q4)
Middle East and Africa - 2.91% (Q4)

Similarly the choice of broadband technology has seen precious little change, with DSL (ADSL, SDSL etc.) still dominating on 64.79%, Cable Modems coming in second at 20.50%, Fibre Optic (FTTx) on 12.37% and others (wireless, satellite etc.) making up the remaining 2.35%. FTTx experienced the highest quarterly growth at 4.9% from 48.4 million in Q4, which is up from Q3's meagre 1.13%.


The Top 10 broadband countries by subscriber size have seen Brazil jump from 10th place to 9th, pushing Canada one slot back to the bottom. Otherwise the UK remains in 6th behind France, though the two are almost tied for 5th. France's higher growth rate means we probably won't get back into 5th for awhile, if ever.