Broadband Grew 33 Percent Years' Time

The number of broadband subscribers in the 30 countries tracked by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) reached 181 million in June. That's a 33 percent increase over the previous year.

Broadband reaches an average 15.5 subscribers per 100 inhabitants, compared to 11.7 subscribers per 100 in 2005. DSL (63 percent) leads over cable modems (29 percent) and other technologies (8 percent) -- like satellite, fiber, and fixed wireless -- in 28 of the 30 countries. Users in the U.S. and Canada tend to opt for cable modems over DSL.

With 57 million users, the U.S. has the largest total number of broadband subscribers. The country accounts for 36 percent of all broadband connections for the 30 OECD countries.

Excluding the U.S., Northern European countries are among the highest rank in terms of broadband penetration. Denmark, the Netherlands, Iceland, Korea, Switzerland, and Finland each have at least 25 broadband subscribers per 100 residents. In the first half of the year the strongest growth in broadband was seen in Denmark, Australia, Norway, the Netherlands, Finland, Luxembourg, Sweden and the U.K. where over six subscribers per 100 people were added in each country.

The OECD tracks Internet users in 30 countries worldwide.

Broadband Subscribers Per 100 Inhabitants by Technology, June 2006
Rank	Country	DSL	Cable	Other	Total	Total Subscribers
1	Denmark	17.4	9.0	2.8	29.3	1,590,539
2	Netherlands	17.2	11.1	0.5	28.8	4,705,829
3	Iceland	26.5	0.0	0.7	27.3	80,672
4	Korea	13.2	8.8	4.5	26.4	12,770,911
5	Switzerland	16.9	9.0	0.4	26.2	1,945,358
6	Finland	21.7	3.1	0.2	25.0	1,309,800
7	Norway	20.4	3.8	0.4	24.6	1,137,697
8	Sweden	14.4	4.3	4.0	22.7	2,046,222
9	Canada	10.8	11.5	0.1	22.4	7,161,872
10	United Kingdom	14.6	4.9	0.0	19.4	11,622,929
11	Belgium	11.9	7.4	0.0	19.3	2,025,112
12	United States	8.0	9.8	1.4	19.2	56,502,351
13	Japan	11.3	2.7	4.9	19.0	24,217,012
14	Luxembourg	16.0	1.9	0.0	17.9	81,303
15	Austria	11.2	6.3	0.2	17.7	1,460,000
16	France	16.7	1.0	0.0	17.7	11,105,000
17	Australia	13.9	2.9	0.6	17.4	3,518,100
18	Germany	14.7	0.3	0.1	15.1	12,444,600
19	Spain	10.5	3.1	0.1	13.6	5,917,082
20	Italy	12.6	0.0	0.6	13.2	7,697,249
21	Portugal	7.9	5.0	0.0	12.9	1,355,602
22	New Zealand	10.7	0.5	0.6	11.7	479,000
23	Czech Republic	3.9	2.0	3.5	9.4	962,000
24	Ireland	6.8	1.0	1.4	9.2	372,300
25	Hungary	4.8	2.9	0.1	7.8	791,555
26	Poland	3.9	1.3	0.1	5.3	2,032,700
27	Turkey	2.9	0.0	0.0	3.0	2,128,600
28	Slovak Republic	2.2	0.5	0.2	2.9	155,659
29	Mexico	2.1	0.7	0.0	2.8	2,950,988
30	Greece	2.7	0.0	0.0	2.7	298,222
	OECD	9.7	4.6	1.2	15.5	180,866,265
Notes: 1. Data for Mexico and Sweden are preliminary estimates. 2. The OECD statistics for the "Other Broadband" category of the Czech Republic include a large number of fixed wireless broadband connections provided over mobile networks.
Source: OECD, 2006

Broadband Subscribers Per 100 Inhabitants, 2001-2005
Country	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005
Australia	0.9	1.8	3.5	7.7	13.8
Austria	3.6	5.6	7.6	10.1	14.1
Belgium	4.4	8.7	11.7	15.5	18.3
Canada	8.9	12.1	15.1	17.6	21.0
Czech Republic	0.1	0.2	0.5	2.5	6.4
Denmark	4.4	8.2	13.0	19.0	25.0
Finland	1.3	5.5	9.5	14.9	22.5
France	1.0	2.8	5.9	10.5	15.2
Germany	2.3	4.1	5.6	8.4	13.0
Greece	0.0	0.0	0.1	0.4	1.4
Hungary	0.3	0.6	2.0	3.6	6.3
Iceland	3.7	8.4	14.3	18.2	26.7
Ireland	0.00	0.3	0.8	3.3	6.7
Italy	0.7	1.7	4.1	8.1	11.9
Japan	2.2	6.1	10.7	15.0	17.6
Korea	17.2	21.8	24.2	24.8	25.4
Luxembourg	0.3	1.5	3.5	9.8	14.9
Mexico	0.1	0.3	0.4	0.9	2.2
Netherlands	3.8	7.0	11.8	19.0	25.3
New Zealand	0.7	1.6	2.6	4.7	8.1
Norway	1.9	4.2	8.0	14.8	21.9
Poland	0.1	0.3	0.8	2.1	2.4
Portugal	1.0	2.5	4.8	8.2	11.5
Slovak Republic	0.0	0.0	0.3	1.0	2.5
Spain	1.2	3.0	5.4	8.1	11.7
Sweden	5.4	8.1	10.7	14.5	20.3
Switzerland	2.0	5.6	10.1	17.5	23.1
Turkey	0.0	0.0	0.3	0.7	2.1
United Kingdom	0.6	2.3	5.4	10.5	15.9
United States	4.5	6.9	9.7	12.9	16.8
OECD	2.9	4.9	7.3	10.2	13.6
EU15	1.6	3.4	5.9	9.7	14.2
Source: OECD, 2006