DSL growth outstrips demand for cable

Take-up of DSL is outstripping demand for cable broadband services, according to research from Point Topic.

Its latest tot-up of global demand for high speed Internet services puts the total number of broadband lines in the world at 77 million at the end of June - up 24 per cent from 62 million lines at the end of December.

Leading the charge was DSL, with demand shooting ahead at 30 per cent during the first six months of the year, compared to 16.5 per cent take up for cable.

According to the stats, DSL makes up 47.6 million lines, while cable modems account for 30.3 million broadband connections.

But that's not the case everywhere. Of all the leading broadband nations, only the US and Canada have substantially more cable modems than DSL lines.

And only in North America is cable broadband growing faster than DSL, at 18.2 per cent rather than 15.5 per cent.

Overall, the USA is by far the largest broadband market with more than 20 million broadband lines. South Korea and Japan account for 10.9 million and 10.4 million lines respectively.

Earlier this week the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) reported that one in ten Net users in the world has a broadband connection.

Its figures showed that at the end of 2002, the number of broadband users had jumped 72 per cent to 62 million punters. ®

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