Rich Fiscus
15 Jul 2008 16:15
There are more than 15 million IPTV subscribers around the world according to the figures released today at the Broadband World Forum Asia in Hong Kong. It's double the number of subscribers from a year earlier. That's out of 370 million broadband internet connections.
Of particular interest is the geographical diistribution of customers. More than half of all IPTV subscribers worldwide are in Europe. North America is in third place with fewer than a third as many subscribers.
Not surprisingly Europe also has the largest number of broadband internet subscribers. In total just over 115 million Europeans have broaband connections. Western Europe saw in increase of 16% but Eastern Europe broadband subscriptions grew a staggering 32%. Similar growth was seen in Latin America as well as the Middle East and Africa.
Growth in cable internet subscriptions has slowed to 18%, while fiber optic connections increased by 33%. DSL still accounted for 240 million, or almost 65% of boradband connections.
"This report shows that although DSL remains the key vehicle for delivering broadband associated services, alternative access technologies, such as fiber, are increasing their footprints and their requirements need to be considered in our work," said George Dobrowski, Chairman and President of the Broadband Forum.