[Satellite TODAY Insider 01-10-11] The number of worldwide broadband subscriptions now exceeds 500 million, according to a market report prepared by Point Topic and announced by the Broadband Forum Jan. 6.
    At the end of September, there were more than 508 million broadband subscriptions — 41.9 million of which are subscribers to IPTV services, cutting into a market traditionally reserved for cable and satellite operators. “IPTV has grown solidly in the last 12 months. Perhaps more importantly, the number of markets and operators offering IPTV is increasing as high-speed broadband spreads around the world,” Point Topic Senior Analyst John Bosnell said in the report.
    Geographically, the research found uneven patterns, with growth generally concentrated in developing broadband markets, with India, Russia, Vietnam, Ukraine and the Philippines all growing by more than 20 percent in the last year. The report also said while China and the United States will continue to add more lines than any other single market, Russia and Brazil are the most rapidly growing, increasing subscribers at 22 percent and 14 percent, respectively. Asia added to its share of the total broadband lines around the globe, adding more than double the number of broadband lines per quarter than any other region.
    While DSL remains the dominant broadband technology, it will be interesting to see what impact satellite can have in this marketplace over the next few years. Hughes and ViaSat’s WildBlue subsidiary have about 1 million broadband connections between them in the United States, and both operators have seen solid growth in recent years. In Europe, the market could see significant changes now that Eutelsat has launched its Ka-Sat satellite and Avanti Communications has launched its Hylas-1 satellite. Along with SES Astra, Point Topic’s report shows that these three players may benefit from the region’s biggest broadband subscriber gains in Eastern Europe. The region, as a whole, performed better in 2010 than in 2009 on a quarter-by-quarter basis.

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