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Europe Catching-Up with S. Korea Broadband


Point Topic reports that South Korea is close to losing its position as the world leader in broadband take-up. After several years when Korea was far ahead of other countries in number of broadband lines per 100 population, Denmark and the Netherlands are now very close to catching up.

South Korea showed negligible broadband growth in 2005 but still has over 25 percent penetration of broadband by population. But Denmark and The Netherlands are only a fraction of a percent behind. Hong Kong and Finland are also close, both having reached a 23 percent penetration level.

Moreover, EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) Region is increasingly leading the roll-out of broadband around the world. The Middle East and Africa, together with Eastern Europe, are the fastest growing of the seven regions considered, although their overall penetration levels are still low.

Western Europe on the other hand has almost caught up with North America as the most high-penetration region, but is still growing considerably faster - 47 percent in 2005 as against 27 percent. Unless broadband growth in Western Europe goes through a very sharp slowdown, it will soon be well ahead of North America in take-up.

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