Broadband passes 500 million subscribers

SEPTEMBER 21, 2010 -- Broadband has achieved a new milestone: The number of subscriber lines passed the 500 million mark in July 2010. The Broadband Forum delivered this news in the global Broadband and IPTV Industry Update at its quarterly meeting in Hong Kong. Research by industry analysts Point Topic pinpointed the actual date as being in the third week in July and the Broadband Forum will mark the occasion with a Milestone Celebration later this week.

"This is an extremely significant milestone and it reflects the critical importance of broadband in our daily lives, both for business and leisure,” said Robin Mersh, chief executive officer of the Broadband Forum, at the event. “The Forum is already looking ahead to the next half billion lines and the challenges and opportunities that such rapid global growth can present. Today is a day to celebrate, but we continue to work toward strategic broadband evolution goals and our work on IPv6 and helping service providers to support its integration is part of our role in anticipating and solving the issues before they arise. This is the one of the key initiatives that is paving the way for the next milestone to be achieved.”

The new figures show that global broadband subscribers reached 498 million lines (497,768,162) by the end of June 2010, representing a 2.63% growth in the quarter and 11.99% in the last 12 months to end of Q2 2010.

“It has only taken 11 years to get to half a billion fixed broadband lines,” said Oliver Johnson, CEO of Point Topic. “The Internet and all that it brings has taken hold like no technology since the invention of fire. It has brought the world closer together, improved health and education standards and introduced an era of cooperation and information sharing that will hasten economic growth and improve standards of living for potentially billions around the world.”

Asia increased its share of the overall broadband market by a further 1.2% in the year Q209 to Q210 and by 0.41% in the last quarter alone. The region now accounts for almost 41% of the total, with Europe in second place with 30% and the Americas showing 26%. China is the biggest individual contributor to the Asian growth adding 5,470,888 lines bringing its total to 120,591,488, over 24% of the 500,000,000 lines achieved in the early part of Q3.

Russia has a more consistent growth curve over the past few quarters compared to the stop/start nature of Brazil. As a result, Russia is likely to overtake Brazil in the next three to six months to become the 9th largest broadband market.

The second quarter also highlighted a strong growth in IPTV subscribers with more than 2.3 million new IPTV subscribers added to the total, reaching more than 38.5 million people using IPTV worldwide by the end of Q2 2010. The growth is in line with broadband growth so the proportion of the world’s broadband lines carrying IPTV remains the same as Q1 at 7.7%.

Europe still remains the most established region for IPTV with almost 19 million subscribers, of which almost half are in France. China (with Hong Kong and Macau) had the most net additions this quarter – 421,000 – ranking it second, with USA in third place with almost 6.5 million subscribers.

China dominates the Asian IPTV market with more than 6.7 million IPTV subscribers, although there is enormous potential in countries such as India which are just at the start of IPTV deployment. Services are also developing in other areas as well. For example, Colombia reported over 100,000 subscribers for the first time in Q2 2010.

“IPTV has seen a steady quarter this time. Most IPTV markets have not reached saturation, so there is plenty more room for growth. Although the second quarter of 2010 doesn’t quite match the same period last year there is reason for particular optimism in Asia and North America. As more and more consumers switch to fiber for their broadband we will see the numbers of IPTV subscribers climbing in those markets where FTTx deployment is powering ahead,” said Oliver Johnson, CEO of Point Topic.
Telcos continue aggressive FTTx deployments

In terms of access technologies, the growth in FTTx take-up is outstripping both DSL and cable, and eroding cable's market share. FTTx has gained market share in the Americas over the last two years.

In Asia, DSL continues to be the more popular choice and is increasing its market share, powered by emerging broadband nations -- such as India, Vietnam, and China -- where major gains have outweighed the technology substitution in South Korea and Japan.

To successfully grow, both in terms of the number of lines and the speed of bandwidth, we need the most efficient network management possible, so that service providers can keep pace with opportunities, such as fixed mobile convergence, the rise in business broadband, Smart Grid, and the fully Connected Home.

A key area of work that must be addressed in order to reach the next 500 million potential subscribers is IPv6, says a Forum spokesperson. With less than 8% of the world’s IPv4 addresses still available, it is critical that we help the industry with a path to incorporating the new IP version into their network and device management systems. IPv6 is not backwards compatible with IPv4, the current technology, so we are developing ways to support both versions at the same time until the day IPv4 devices phase out.