Posted: 19th Jul, 2011 By: MarkJ

A new study from
ABI Research has estimated that the total number of global subscribers to superfast fibre optic ( FTTH ) style broadband ISP services is expected to "
more than double" from
69.6 million in 2011 to 142 million by 2016.
True fibre optic networks take their high capacity cable directly to your home or business, which cuts out the interference and instability of using existing copper cable and can therefore deliver low-latency and symmetric internet speeds of 100Mbps (Megabits per second) or more.
ABI Research's Practice Director, Jason Blackwell, said:
"There were more than 539 million fixed broadband subscribers globally at the end of second quarter (2011). That is an 8% increase from the same quarter in 2010. Customer net addition is stronger in emerging markets."
ABI claims that the number of people using high bandwidth services, such as internet video and IPTV, is growing and putting ISPs under a lot of pressure to adapt with faster and more flexible services like fibre optic broadband.
Similar statistics from Point Topic UK recently found that the total number of global broadband subscribers had grown at a fairly steady rate of 2.9% during Q1-2011 to reach 540.69 million. Its data suggested that
fibre optic broadband services hold 14.10% of the market or 76 million subscribers (
here) and growing.