Global DSL posts record growth

DSL deployment globally is growing at a record rate of 45% as IPTV helped drive the addition of 40 million new DSL subscribers as of September 2005, the DSL Forum said today. Point Topic, which tracks global DSL for the forum, said 100,000 new DSL subs are being added daily and 140 million are expected to be on board by the end of 2005.

The European Union, and particularly France and the U.K., drove 40% of that growth. The Middle East and Africa, with a fairly low base, grew the fastest, at 140%, with much of that driven by Turkey, which added 850,00 subs. The popularity of IPTV in France and Hong Kong was also a significant factor, said Tim Johnson of Point Topic.

“IPTV is a relatively new service offering but had already won almost 1.5 million subscribers around the world in the first half of 2005, 30% of them in Hong Kong alone and a further 18% in France,” he said in a prepared statement. “All major telcos are now committed to providing IPTV services and while it is not yet a "killer application", take up is accelerating. Millions more people are accessing free video and television resources available over the internet - there are more than 1.3 million in the UK alone, spending an average of five hours each week using them. IPTV has the potential to develop into an entirely new medium because of its ability to integrate many different media and provide user-friendly interactivity.”

The U.S. is still second only to China in total DSL subscribers at 17,310,454, but is well down the list in percentage of penetration. China added 10 million DSL subscribers during the period covered and is approaching 25 million total. South Korea continues to lead in DSL penetration, followed by Taiwan, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Japan and Italy, all above 20% penetration.