Broadband Connections On The Rise
Broadband connections are expected to be more pervasive in the U.S. and across the world in the next few years. In a report titled "US Broadband Forecast, 2007 to 2012: LECs Maintain Advantage over Cable Operators in Quest for New Subscribers" JupiterResearch indicates that there will be about 36 million new broadband subscribers by 2012, and that about 86 million total households in the U.S. will have broadband access.
JupiterResearch analyst Doug Williams says that as broadband becomes more of a viable and appealing option for consumers, households that subscribe to dial-up services will shrink.
"As broadband becomes more attractive to consumers from an economic perspective, current dial-up users will be more likely to migrate to broadband service, and consumers who are new to the online population will never take dial-up service in the first place," Williams said.
According to JupiterResearch, the current 33 million households that use dial-up connections will dwindle by more than two-thirds by 2012. Nevertheless, there will still be a small market for dial-up connection service that will linger.
Data released by In-Stat in a report titled "Broadband Gets Big: Global Broadband Subs Hit 285 Million" indicates that this growth in broadband connections will extend across the globe.
Currently, there are 285 million broadband subscribers worldwide. That number is expected to rise to 567 million by 2011.
Of all broadband connections in the world, 92% are DSL and cable modems. By 2011, more than half of the world’s broadband connections will be DSL, according to the report.
Mike Paxton of In-Stat said that "The emergence of online applications such as viewing video clips or TV programming, downloading music files, and even playing online games, are fueling end-user demand for ‘fatter pipes.’"
eMarketer corroborates with these expectations of growing broadband pervasiveness, though with slightly different figures. According to eMarketer, 2007 will see 299.5 million households with broadband access worldwide, while 2011 will see 497.4 million broadband-enabled households.
Alternative broadband channels such as fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) are also expected to see increasing popularity by 2011. Currently, these alternative technologies are only seeing growth in Japan, South Korea, and the U.S. According to Point Topic, 10.2% of all broadband connections in the world were through FTTH technology in the third quarter of 2006.
In-Stat expects that more than 55 million households will have FTTH broadband connections by 2011.
Sources:
http://www.webpronews.com/insiderreports/2007/05/29/
u-s-broadband-to-reach-86-million-households
http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?id=1004992
