Broadband Growth Still Breaking Records

South Korea could lose its long-held top spot as the country with the highest penetration of broadband access as rivals like Hong Kong gain ground.

According to the latest figures from Point Topic -- which collates statistics for the DSL Forum -- with 21 broadband lines per 100, Hong Kong is now only 3.4 per 100 lines behind and growing much faster than South Korea.

Denmark, Canada, the Netherlands, Taiwan and Switzerland are already in the 15 lines per 100 area, according to Point Topic.

The market research group also says the number of broadband lines worldwide increased by almost 55 percent to over 123 million in the 12 months to June 2004.

DSL lines increased by over 30 million, or 66 percent, to 78 million. Cable modem and other broadband lines increased by nearly 13 million, or 39 percent to 45 million."One big feature of the market in the last year is the growth of broadband services over fibre, so called "Fibre-to-the-building, FTTB, or FTTx to cover all the options," said Tim Johnson, Point Topic's publisher.

The FTTx share of "other broadband" lines accounted for 9 million lines by 30 June, or 7.3 percent of total broadband, according to Johnson. Other technologies, mainly fixed wireless access and satellite, accounted for less than 0.3 percent of the total, he added.

The U.S. is still well in the lead as the world's biggest broadband country, with over 29 million lines.

And he notes that the world's top nine broadband countries are now the top seven economies plus China and South Korea.