World Broadband Population Set To Boom

Telecoms firms and industry bodies have expressed a certain amount of frustration at the slow take-up of broadband in many developed countries. However, In-Stat/MDR predicts that the broadband population is set to increase from 30 million to 46 million this year.

As the telecommunications infrastructure improves, so broadband penetration will rise and there are predicted to be 125 million subscribers by 2006.

In late 2001, DSL overtook cable as the world’s most popular broadband access technology with 17 million subscribers. This was largely as a result of an upsurge in sales in the Asia-Pacific region. In the United States, cable modem subscribers still outnumber DSL subscribers by 7.1 million to 4.6 million.

The report calculates that alternative broadband access technologies such as satellite broadband, Fiber-to-the-Home and fixed wireless service account for only 5% of worldwide subscribers.