" ITREALMS: Broadband: 40m subscribers mark achieved in 2013

Sunday, April 13, 2014

Broadband: 40m subscribers mark achieved in 2013


An estimated 40 million new broadband subscribers lashed on the rave of the moment technology, just as 14.1 per cent growth was made in Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) marking a year of steady growth, ITRealms.

According an official press statement made available to ITRealms, this figure was achieved in 2013, raking total broadband lines to 678.6 million world-wide.

ITRealms notes that the overall figures showed steady growth but slowing as older markets reach saturation, hence, Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) is still the predominant technology, but fiber continues to outpace all access types in new deployments.

The Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) is nearing the 100 million subscriber threshold with 21 per cent growth in 2013 and 17 million new subscribers taking the total to 96 million at year end 2013.

As affirmed by Broadband Forum in its latest newsletter, the update shows a slowing but steady growth in broadband subscribers with some significant trends in technology and regional growth in new markets.

The figures, prepared by Point Topic as sighted by ITRealms, highlighted the addition of over 40 million new users world-wide, an annual increase of 6.15 per cent, bringing the global total up to 678,455,893m.

Speaking at the Fixed Access Networks Summit in Berlin, Germany, last week, the Broadband
Forum chief executive officer, Robin Mersh, said that these figures for 2013 paints an extremely interesting picture both regionally and in terms of the changes in technology choices as some markets reach saturation and others started their digital journey.

“They are a great illustration of the ‘second age of broadband access,’ with existing customers demanding more bandwidth and operators introducing new technologies,” he said.

In addition, he said, the figures show that copper-based technologies such as DSL, Asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL) and ADSL2plus continue to be dominant, although fiber-based technologies, which include Very-high-bit-rate digital subscriber line (VDSL) and VDSL2 are taking a firmer

grip and with growth rates of 17.6 per cent overall.

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