Skip to main content

Broadband's Role in Economic Development

Broadband Internet access is gradually becoming a defining characteristic of advanced industrialized economies, and broadband take rates have been increasing at a rapid pace across the world.

The latest update to ABI Research's online Broadband Subscribers Database forecasts that the total number of DSL and cable broadband users in the world will grow by an average of 9 percent annually over the next five years to reach 480 million subscribers by 2012.

"The Asia-Pacific region offers a potentially huge market to tap into," says broadband research analyst Serene Fong, of ABI Research's Asia bureau. "In terms of statistical benchmarking, the subscriber base in the Asia-Pacific region will grow substantially over the next five years, and is expected to outperform other areas. Much of the Asia-Pacific growth is expected to be fueled by the flourishing Chinese broadband market."

Telco broadband DSL will continue to be the fastest growing sector in the industry, as opposed to cable broadband. Asia-Pacific research director and general manager Jake Saunders comments, "DSL is set for stronger growth than cable across the globe mainly because it is able to leverage existing telecommunications infrastructure, leading to lower prices and greater ease of deployment."

Popular posts from this blog

Semiconductor Economics Rewritten by AI Demand

Semiconductor forecasts rarely move enough to reshape an enterprise boardroom budget conversation. Omdia's latest worldwide market study findings does exactly that. The research firm has raised its 2026 global semiconductor revenue forecast to 94.1 percent year-over-year growth, an increase driven almost entirely by memory pricing tied to artificial intelligence infrastructure. For technology executives, the number itself matters less than what sits underneath it. Applied-AI demand has now outrun the industry's capacity to produce and package the chips it needs, and Omdia expects that imbalance to persist through early 2027. The Semiconductor Forecast Revision Memory integrated circuits, DRAM and NAND combined, are now projected to account for more than 50 percent of total semiconductor revenue in 2026. That threshold has rarely been crossed in the industry's history. It marks a structural shift in where chip economics get decided. Logic used to set the pace of the industr...