Broadband Subscriptions Continue to Rise Worldwide

The number of subscribers to broadband services increased by 26 percent in year-over-year growth from December ’05 to December ’06. The growth rate describes the subscriber base in the 30 countries tracked by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

A 26 percent increase brings total broadband subscribers to 197 million at the close of 2006, up from 157 million the previous year. Per capita, broadband reaches 16.9 subscribers per 100 inhabitants, an increase from 15.5 subscribers per 100 inhabitants reported midyear and 13.5 per 100 in 2005. Broadband penetration exceeds 30 subscribers per 100 inhabitants in Denmark and the Netherlands and 26 subscribers for every 100 people in Iceland, Korea, Switzerland, Finland, Norway, and Sweden.

Countries adding at least 5.8 subscribers per 100 citizens include Denmark, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and Ireland, which accounted for the strongest per-capita subscriber growth over last year.

The U.S. maintains the largest total number of broadband subscribers among countries tracked by OECD, with 29 percent of all broadband connections. U.S. broadband subscribers reached 58.1 million in December. Canada leads the G7 group of industrialized countries in broadband penetration.

Broadband technologies include DSL (62 percent); cable modem (29 percent); FTTH (define) and fiber-to-the-building (FTTB) (7 percent); and other technologies, including satellite, fixed wireless, and power-line communications (2 percent). Cable is the predominant broadband delivery method in the U.S. and Canada, though DSL takes the lead in 28 of the 30 countries. Fiber technology adoption is on the rise in Korea and Japan. Japan leads in fiber connections with 7.9 million FTTH subscribers.

OECD counts a broadband connection as a data line with a download speed equal to or greater than 256 kilobits per second. Population data used to calculate per capita figures typically come from the previous year.