“Clearly, pent-up demand for faster Internet connections – particularly among work-at-home households such as telecommuters, day-extenders, and home-based businesses – is forcing service providers to quickly respond and aggressively push DSL,” said Amy Harris, senior analyst for IDC’s Broadband Markets and Technologies programme. “Because of this push, the DSL subscriber base will exceed that of cable modems by 2003. However, the market must contend with rapidly changing standards, installation and provisioning challenges, and competition from other broadband technologies, including cable modems and fixed wireless.”
Currently, the US represents around half of the worldwide DSL lines yet despite growth estimated at 26 million lines by 2004, the US share will drop to 39% by this time.
These figures concur with recent findings by Harris Interactive, whose study on DSL services indicated that it was becoming the favoured means of broadband access, as the table below shows.
| |
US Broadband Households (000s) |
Cable Modem Share |
DSL Share |
| Apr-00 |
3,622 |
65% |
24% |
| Jul-00 |
4,552 |
58% |
28% |
| Nov-00 |
4,918 |
55% |
34% |
| Jan-01 |
5,098 |
51% |
39% |
