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OECD Statistics Find Mobile Broadband Growth as Fixed Line ISP Services Plummet

Posted: 24th Jun, 2011 By: MarkJ
wireless subscriptions oecd 2010oecd logoThe Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), which includes 34 countries that all claim to be committed to democracy and a market economy, has released its latest batch of internet technology statistics and found that wireless broadband subscriptions were growing faster than fixed line services.

According to the study, wireless broadband subscriptions in OECD countries topped 500 Million last year, with an annual growth of 10%. The fast-growing popularity of Mobile Broadband equipped Smartphone's (iPhone, HTC Desire etc.), Tablet computers (iPad, Samsung Tablet etc.) and lower cost data plans is driving the market.

By contrast the fixed line broadband ISP market grew by just 6% during the same period and achieved a total of 305 Million, which is apparently "the lowest growth rate since the OECD started collecting broadband statistics just over a decade ago". The UK comes 5th in the league table with a total of 19,594,087 fixed line broadband connections.

total fixed broadband subscriptions 2010 oecd

Meanwhile DSL (ADSL, ADSL2+ etc.) continues to dominate the most popular broadband technologies and accounts for 57.6% of all OECD lines. Cable Modem (e.g. Virgin Media UK) makes up 29.4% and fibre optic ( FTTH , FTTC etc. ) based services hold the rest. Leading countries in fibre are Japan (58%), Korea (55%), Slovak Republic (29%) and Sweden (26%).

The OECD average fixed line broadband penetration chart (below), which also includes uptake of different technologies, shows just how far behind the UK is (marked with RED) in its own uptake of ultrafast fibre optic broadband solutions. It should be said that the OECD includes FTTC style services, which are still partly based on the old copper telecoms infrastructure, into its data.

oecd broadband penetration by technology 2010

Elsewhere the average ADVERTISED download speed in the OECD was 37,503Kbps (Kilobits per second) at the end of September 2010 (i.e. about 37Mbps if you prefer). By contrast the UK's advertised rate was just 26,624Kbps (26Mbps), although this data is questionable since most consumers are still using slower ADSL / ADSL2+ based broadband services. Likewise real-world performance is often well below what most ISPs advertise.

The OECD also offers a useful breakdown of advertised broadband speeds by technology type. This shows that DSL is able to deliver an average download speed of 14Mbps (2.4Mbps upload speed), Cable can do 29.7Mbps (2.6Mbps) and FTTH fibre optic broadband delivers 93Mbps (60Mbps).

Finally, the UK did poorly when it came to broadband prices per megabits per second (i.e. 1Mbps) of advertised speed. The cost for 1Mbps of speed in the UK is $1.10 (24th place), while the cheapest is Sweden at $0.12. Mexico, which is the slowest OECD nation for broadband, is also the most expensive per Mb at $11.77!
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