3 Million N.A. Broadband Subscribers Added in Q1

Broadband grew by 16.6 million lines globally in the last quarter alone, with more than 3 million being added across North America, according to new statistics released today by the Broadband Forum in conjunction with research firm Point Topic.

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.

In terms of technology, DSL continues to be the most popular broadband access technology with 64.6 percent of the market, although fiber grew by more than 3 million lines to reflect a 12.4 percent share of the market, while wireless showed a healthy proportionate increase of more than 1 million lines to a total of 5.58 million.