Mobile broadband 'no threat' to fixed broadband services

Peter Dinham
Sunday, 16 August 2009 10:53

IT Industry - Market

Frost & Sullivan reports that in 2008, the top six Asia-Pacific countries with the highest household broadband penetration rates were South Korea - said to be one of the highest in the world - at 92.8 percent, Hong Kong - 85 percent, Singapore - 78.5 percent, Taiwan - 66 percent, Japan -62.7 percent, and Australia with 63.7 percent, The remaining eight markets have household broadband penetration rates of less than 60 percent.

According to Frost & Sullivan, by number of subscribers, in 2008 China had the most fixed broadband users with 83.4 million (53.8 percent of the region’s total subscriber base), followed by Japan with 30 million and South Korea with 15.5 million.

Looking forward, Najam dispels the threat of mobile broadband to fixed broadband services, saying that he believes that both access services need to co-exist, and that “in the age of convergence and multi-play services, both wireless and wireline broadband should be viewed as complementing technology to offer subscribers with blended services.

“While mobile broadband has significantly lower throughput than fixed access, it provides residential users with the convenience of ‘on-the-go’ connectivity.”