Stuart Corner
Friday, 21 November 2008 10:31
Opinion and Analysis
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The pundits seem to be trying to outdo each other with forecasts for broadband uptake. One thinks the world has now passed the billion user milestone, and Ericsson reckons that in five years time 80 percent of all broadband connections will be mobile, which would be a serious problem for the builder of the National Broadband Network.
Strategy Analytics lays claim to flagging the billion broadband user milestone. Its global forecasting model predicts 415 million broadband connection by the end of 2008 but its 'broadband user' designation " is meant to capture the multiple individuals potentially sharing a single household broadband subscription," it says, claiming it to be "an important indicator for Internet companies of broadband's global reach."
Rival number cruncher, Point Topic, at least agrees on this 400 million connection figure, and some. It says that, "as the total number of broadband lines in the world passes 400 million Point Topic forecasts that the total in the 40 biggest broadband countries in the world will grow from 393 million by the end of 2008 to 635 million by 2013. Broadband in the rest of the world will grow from 16 million to 48 million lines in the same period, so the world will add 273 million lines to reach 683 million in total.
Unfortunately Point Topic does not specify exactly what it means by broadband 'lines' Do these include fixed wireless, or mobile wireless as well?
An important question given that 3G Americas has just put out a statement claiming that "3G UMTS/HSPA mobile broadband technology continues its momentum throughout the world, adding more than 100 million subscriptions in the twelve months ending in the third quarter 2008."
This "mobile broadband" label might suggest they are talking about data connections, but subsequent statements suggest they are really talking about 3G mobile subscriptions per se. One minute they are talking about 3G UMTS/HSPA and the next about the GSM/HSPA 'family'.
All very confusing, and I suspect deliberately so to make the numbers look good and support their contention tht "the uptake of 3G services [has been]...driven by the phenomenal success of the HSPA-enabled USB dongle as a competitive fixed broadband alternative, both on speed and price." However it is impossible to tease out from 3G America's figure exactly how many 3G dongles they think are out there.
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