Superfast take-up signals the decline of DSL technology

Point Topic’s latest survey of the UK ISP market shows an underlying trend towards lower numbers of DSL lines as fibre-based technology begins to encroach on DSL’s patch.

Point Topic estimates there were over 2.6 million superfast lines in service at the end of September 2012, representing 12% of the country’s total broadband customer base. This compares with 9.4% at the end of June 2012 and means that the share taken by DSL technology is beginning to decline. In fact total DSL lines were down by nearly 10,000 during the quarter.

Virgin Media continues to take the largest slice of the superfast pie with 1,756,000 lines at the end of September 2012, while the BT Infinity product accounted for an estimated 804,000 lines.

Encouragingly the share taken by non-BT Retail ISPs on the Openreach network is rising, standing at 7.9% at the beginning of November 2012 compared with 6.7% three months earlier.