THE OECD has released its latest data on broadband subscriptions, up to December
2012. These show a steady trend increase in fibre adoption, with the share
of fibre subscriptions in fixed broadband increasing to 14.9% (up to 48.7
million fibre broadband lines). Fibre grew by 12.7% in 2012, four times as
much as fixed broadband at 3.27%.
Luxembourg (324%), Austria (193.9%), Turkey (169.9%) and Switzerland (149.6%)
had the strongest annual growth in fibre, while seven countries had growth
rates above 100% year-on-year and 11 countries over 50%.
Broadband providers are investing in fibre networks as a means to differentiate
themselves against their competitors. Consumers and businesses in turn benefit
from faster and more reliable networks for advanced applications, such as video
on demand (VoD).
Japan and Korea still maintain a strong OECD leadership in fibre broadband
penetration, with over 60% of fixed broadband lines based on fibre technology.
The fibre shares in Estonia, Sweden and the Slovak Republic are over 30%.
Switzerland
(43.4), Netherlands (39.7) and Denmark (38.8) top the OECD’s fixed broadband
penetration ranking. The OECD’s average fixed broadband penetration is 26.3
lines per 100 inhabitants (327.2 million subscriptions).
Wireless broadband increased by 13.8% year-on-year and reached a penetration
of 62.75 lines per 100 inhabitants, up from 58.6 in June 2012. The total number
of wireless broadband subscriptions in the OECD area is just above 780 million.
Finland (106.5), Sweden (104.8), Australia (103.4) and Korea (103.0) have over
one subscriber per capita.
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