Category: Broadband

Cable companies accounted for 64% of the overall U.S. residential broadband market while DSL garnered the remaining 36%, according to market researcher Leichtman Research Group. DSL added 800,000 subscribers, or 39% of new customers, versus cable’s remaining 61%.

Gartner has predicted that there will be no more than 210,000 broadband subscribers in the country by 2007, i.e., a three-fold rise from the current 75,000. Gartner has also predicted that in the next four years, the mobile subscriber base will grow to 70 M ? a conservative estimate compared to the government?s gung ho projections of 100 M mobile subscribers by 2007. Gartner expects the fixed-line subscriber base to go up to around 65.4 M in the same year.

77% of broadband customers are satisfied with their Internet service provider. Over one-half say they are satisfied with the customer service personnel and nearly 50% say the same about the quality of their broadband transmission. Comparatively, only 37% tell Yankee they are satisfied with the speed of their high-speed Internet connection and the value of their broadband service for the money, respectively.

52% of broadband subscribers in the US who have used both the Internet and the telephone for broadband technical support prefer to use the telephone than any other support outlet. Zanthus surveyed 565 residential broadband subscribers in the US in May 2003 and reports that while the phone is the preferred method of tech support communication, respondents do see some benefits in online support methods. For example, 60% say online support is convenient because it can be done at whatever pace is desired by the subscriber. Also, 59% acknowledge that online support does not entail the hassle of being transferred around by phone.

Customer Premise Equipment (CPE) market is evolving from one comprised of nearly 100% modems to one where the CPE is a complete whole-home services delivery device. As a result, Residential Gateways, with higher degrees of intelligence, network management capabilities, and network bridging, will increase from 3% of the CPE market in 2003 to one third of all devices shipped in 2007. The high-tech market research firm estimates that the total broadband CPE market, which includes modems, residential gateways, and SOHO routers, will be $5.1 billion in 2003.

Consumers are showing that if the service providers will not give them home network support in the form of equipment sales, installation and management, they will do so themselves by going out and connecting their broadband connections and multiple PCs together through a home router. Low-cost SOHO routers have hit multi-million unit volumes since 2000 and will continue to sell well.

63% of dial-up households said they would not upgrade to broadband because it’s too expensive, according to a survey conducted by The Yankee Group. In addition, 33% of households that have broadband said they would swap out their current broadband service for a cheaper one.

Dial-up users spent $324 online on average in the past three months. Broadband users spent $552 in that period. The dial-up user’s average annual income is $53,200, while the broadband consumer’s is $70,500. The average age of the dial-up user is 47 to broadband’s 43. And only 34 percent of dial-up users have a college degree, while 55% of broadband users are similarly qualified. The same research indicated that 39 percent of dial-up users have children younger than 18 in the household versus 41 percent for broadband.

Total number of broadband lines in the world was at 77 million at the end of June – up 24% from 62 million lines at the end of December. According to the stats, DSL makes up 47.6 million lines, while cable modems account for 30.3 million broadband connections. 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.

At the end of 2002, the number of broadband users had jumped 72% to 62 million. Korea leads the way in broadband penetration, with approximately 21 broadband subscribers for every 100 inhabitants. It’s followed by Hong Kong (15 broadband subscribers per 100 inhabitants) and Canada (11 per hundred).

54% of respondents to the Jupiter survey cited file sharing as their reason for switching to broadband. And 31% of all current broadband customers said they use file-sharing applications.

Over the first half of 2003, Japan led the world in DSL subscriber growth, gaining the greatest number of new subscribers of any country — roughly 2.6 million — between 1 January and 30 June 2003, reports Point-Topic.

China followed Japan, gaining about 1.9 million new DSL subscribers over the first half of this year, with the US rounding out the top three, gaining 1.1 million in the same time frame.

Eight in ten homes in the UK can now get ADSL broadband, according to telecoms giant BT.

Broadband grew 92 per cent in Europe in 2002 according to a new report from Forrester Research.

In 2008, Forrester expects 30 per cent of homes will have broadband, 57 per cent of all online households, and advises access providers to shift their focus over the next 18 months from volume to profit growth by expanding tiered services, abandoning their portals, and rethinking billing.

Scandinavia and the Netherlands will dominate the ratings; German-speaking Europe, Belgium, Finland, and the UK will form a second tier; and Southern Europe and Ireland will continue to lag.

Cable modem broadband service is expected to grow at high speeds. In-Stat/MDR reports that total worldwide cable modem subscribers reached 27 million in mid-2003, and is expected to hit 34 million by the end of the year. By 2007, In-Stat/MDR projects that there will be 68 million worldwide cable modem subscribers.

By geographic region, North America has the most cable modem subscribers with over 14.6 million. Comparatively, Leichtman Research Group (LRG) estimates that DSL only accounted for roughly 6.8 million U.S. subscribers at the end of the first quarter of 2003.

Supporting data from the Pew Internet & American Life Project indicates that modems served as the primary way people log on using broadband. In March 2003, 67 percent of broadband users connect using cable modems ? up from 63 percent in March 2002 ? while DSL had 28 percent of the broadband market in March 2003, down from 34 percent a year earlier.

In-Stat/MDR found that the Asia-Pacific region had the second highest cable modem subscriptions at 6.6 million, followed by Europe with 3.7 million.

“With demand for high-speed Internet access increasing, many of the world’s leading cable TV operators have invested heavily to upgrade their cable infrastructure in order to provide cable modem services,” says Mike Paxton, a senior analyst with In-Stat/MDR. “These investments are starting to pay off.”

According to In-Stat/MDR, cable TV operators collected $11 billion in cable modem service revenues in 2002, and this amount is expected to increase to $15 billion in 2003. However, Ipsos-Insight expects U.S. broadband adoption to lag since many users still aren’t ready to abandon dial-up. Four-in-ten dial-up users said cost was a reason they hadn’t yet switched to high-speed Internet access, and another one-third are not convinced they need broadband at all.

Further research from Ipsos-Insight reveals that even if broadband access drops to $20 per month, only 20 percent of Americans with dial-up said they would sign up for high-speed (whether DSL or cable), leaving 80 percent of dial-up users who wouldn’t switch, even at the $20 price-point.