Broadband growth ‘astounding’
p2pnet.net News:- The number of people now accessing the Net via a broadband connection grew by an “astounding” 24%, says a new study.
But, while fixed line and cable companies continue to race for market share, Wi-Fi is a formidable new contender with 11% of users having accessed the Net through some wireless connection in 2004, it states, continuing:
“The advantages of recent wireless technologies that enable broadband Internet access, such as Wi-Fi, Wi-Max, and 3G are well positioned to propel growth in both developed and lesser-developed environments.”
Ipsos-Insight findings based on interviews in 12 key global markets with 6,544 adults, including 3,304 active Internet users, show the accelerated broadband adoption in 2004 resulted in less than a third of the Internet Users relying on narrowband dial-up as their primary access point.
“The year 2004 also marked the year when the US migrated over to a predominantly broadband country, where close to six out of ten users accessed the Internet through some high-speed connection,” says the report.
However, the countries with the highest broadband adoption were France, urban Brazil and the UK, growing by 59%, 50%, and 45% respectively.
“While dial-up access continues to be the prevalent access point in these economies, the broadband growth trend was particularly strong,” says Ipsos-Insight.
Consumers globally will continue their, “rapid march to high-speed services as service providers offer broadband solutions that appeal to the Internet User masses in each country,” predicts co-author Nilesh Modi, going on:
“But that is not to say it will be a while for many, before fixed-line services will be dropped in favor of alternatives such as cable or optical fiber or dial-up services in favor of fixed-line broadband options.”
For the moment, countries can still be divided into those relying heavily on dial-up access vs those who rely mainly on broadband.
Dial-up regions include the urban markets of Russia, India, Mexico, and Brazil and the European regions of France and the UK for whom dial-up will probably move toward fixed line high-speed options that such as DSL or ISDN, says the study.
It emphasises that the continued importance of fixed lines is evidenced in DSL’s adoption, which is the main connection globally, accessed by half of high-speed users. In addition, ISDN, also accessed through fixed-lines, is predominant in Germany, the UK and Urban India.
“In North America and Urban Russia, on the other hand, cable is the predominant high-speed connection,” says Ipsos-Insight.
“Notably, the majority of the households in urban markets of China and India have cable television access – the highest, in fact, relative to the measured markets – 97% and 96% respectively. Due to their sheer population sizes and wide cable access, they present enormous opportunity for future cable-broadband Internet connectivity.
“As these markets continue to embrace the Internet, they may indeed opt for cable Internet connectivity over DSL as is already noticeable in urban India.”
Seen in terms of market share, fixed-line owns 67%, cable owns 28%, and optical fiber owns 5%, says the report.
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