3 Million New North American Broadband Subscribers Added in First Quarter 2009 Despite Economic Downturn

SAN JOSE, Calif., June 16, 2009 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Global IPTV market up to nearly 24 million with 9.77% quarterly growth and strong activity across North America

The Broadband Forum today announced the latest broadband and IPTV statistics, which show impressive growth in the face of the global economic downturn. Its report, prepared for the Forum by industry analysts Point Topic (GBS database at http://point-topic.com/home/gbs/ [1]), shows that broadband grew by 16.6 million lines globally in the last quarter alone, with more than three million being added across North America - while IPTV continues to expand strongly.

Broadband lines in the world now top 429.2 million and the last quarter shows growth slightly higher than the previous three month period. Twenty countries grew by 10 percent or more in that time. The biggest growth in the top 20 came from India at 13.4 percent, while the other large gainers were Ukraine (15.2 percent), Egypt (10.6 percent) and Mexico (10.3 percent). Of the total figure, North America grew 3.87 percent to more than 93.5 million.

    Top 10 broadband countries

    Country                   2008 Q1         2009 Q1

    China                    71,034,820      88,088,000
    USA                      72,581,920      83,968,547
    Japan                    28,836,100      30,631,900
    Germany                  21,077,450      24,144,350
    France                   16,186,996      18,009,500
    UK                       16,318,300      17,661,100
    South Korea              14,970,775      15,709,771
    Italy                    11,300,077      12,447,533
    Brazil                    7,949,000      10,065,200
    Canada                    8,859,868       9,533,500
    Global Total            269,115,306     310,259,401

    Source: Data provided for the Broadband Forum by Point
www.point-topic.com [2]

North America was again a major factor in the continued IPTV success story, with impressive growth of more than 15 percent over the last quarter and a huge 94.2 percent year-on-year improvement. There are now nearly 4.5 million lines of IPTV across North America.

    IPTV subscriptions per region

    Region             2008 Q1     2008 Q4     2009 Q1
                        Total       Total       Total     Quarterly    Yearly
                                                           Growth      Growth
    Latin America       11,183      21,495      23,467      9.17%     109.85%
    Eastern Europe     553,394     955,234   1,158,673     21.30%     109.38%
    North America    2,283,601   3,830,507   4,435,102     15.78%      94.22%
    South and East
      Asia           2,086,000   3,618,000   3,990,000     10.28%      91.28%
    Western Europe   7,799,449  10,367,586  11,375,200      9.72%      45.85%
    Asia-Pacific     2,619,035   3,058,182   3,005,015     -1.74%      14.74%
    Middle East
      and Africa        10,000      10,000      10,000      0.00%       0.00%

    Source: Data provided for the Broadband Forum by Point
www.point-topic.com [2]

In terms of technology, DSL continues to be the most popular broadband access technology, although fiber grew by more than three million lines to reflect a 12.4 percent share of the market, while wireless showed a healthy proportionate increase of over one million lines to a total of 5.58 million.

"This report shows that despite the economic situation the world is facing, the demand for both broadband and IPTV continues at pace as people everywhere look to improve the quality and speed of their communications," said George Dobrowski, Chairman and President of the Broadband Forum.

"The Forum continues to drive broadband innovation, and with the release of BroadbandSuite 3.0, which provides new IPTV management and fiber integration tools, we continue to ensure that the industry has all the tools and specifications it needs to optimize networks and to capture the full potential of broadband worldwide. Our capability is enhanced by the recent union with the IP/MPLS Forum, which gives us a much greater end-to-end capability to serve the industry."

For further information about the Broadband Forum and BroadbandSuite 3.0 mentioned here, visit www.broadband-forum.org [3].

For further information please contact Chrissie Walker or Brian Dolby on +44 (0) 115 948 6901 or by email to chrissie@bcspr.co.uk or brian@bcspr.co.uk.

About the Broadband Forum

The Broadband Forum mission is to develop the full potential of broadband. With the recent union with the IP/MPLS Forum, the Broadband Forum is now the central body for next generation IP network specifications. This organization, comprising around 200 members of most of the world's leading service providers, equipment manufacturers, chip vendors and other key organizations, defines and facilitates next generation networks for local broadband access, mobile backhaul, business services, IPTV, gaming and other applications, and is poised to address further developments as they arise. The Broadband Forum's formal BroadbandSuite(TM) Release Program, Technical Reports and specifications are publicly available at www.broadband-forum.org [3].

SOURCE The Broadband Forum