Broadband Grew 33 Percent Years' Time
Worldwide subscribers to broadband services reached 181 million in June.
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. |
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| 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 | |||||
