Fiber is fastest-growing broadband service

Fiber is fastest-growing broadband service; subscribers to reach 106 million worldwide by 2014.The number of fixed broadband subscribers worldwide will rise to 501 million at the end of 2014 -- and 106 million of them will subscribe to services delivered via fiber optic cable, say analysts at ABI Research in Singapore.

This increase to 106 million fixed fiber broadband subscribers by 2014 will represent a 240 percent increase over the 44 million fiber broadband subscribers at the end of 2009, ABI analysts say.

“Broadband penetration continues to increase since more service providers are offering triple-play services and driving down access prices,” explains Serene Fong, an ABI industry analysts. The number of fixed broadband subscribers totaled more than 422 million at the end of 2009, a 9 percent increase from 2008.

Among the three broadband technologies, 65 percent of worldwide fixed broadband consumers subscribe to DSL, 25 percent to cable, and 11 percent to fiber broadband services. The number of fiber broadband subscribers is increasing fastest, showing a compound annual growth rate of 20 percent from 2008 to 2014.

“File sharing, music downloads, IPTV, online gaming and video conferencing are all acting to increase the user demand for high speed Internet," says Khin Sandi Lynn, a research associate at ABI. "The number of fiber broadband subscribers is increasing with growing popularity of these services.”

The Asia-Pacific region has the highest fiber broadband penetration, followed by North America. Asia-Pacific represents nearly 84 percent of worldwide fiber broadband subscribers. South Korea and Japan have the highest fiber broadband penetration. NTT is the largest fiber broadband operator with approximately 12 million subscribers, ABI analysts say.

ABI's research on fixed broadband subscribers is contained in an ABI quarterly study called “Broadband Subscribers Market Data ” which profiles subscriber trends categorized by operator, by country, and by technology.

June 2, 2011

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