|
Another 41 million homes and businesses - over 112,000 every day around the world - selected digital subscriber line (DSL) technology for broadband connectivity in 2005.
By December 31, 2005, there were 138.8 million broadband DSL subscribers globally, according to the latest data produced for the DSL Forum by industry analyst Point Topic. In the year, DSL subscriber levels grew by 42% - at a rate of almost 800,000 per week. Regionally, the European Union (EU) remained the largest DSL population worldwide, adding 16.7 million subscribers in the year - a growth of 53% - and at a total of 48.2 million DSL subscribers, now accounting for almost 35% of the world market. The Middle East and Africa was the fastest growing region, increasing its DSL subscriber base by 112.5% in 2005, to reach a total of almost three million. Turkey added more than one million new subscribers and accounted for almost 70% of the region's growth in the year. Latin America saw a growth of 79% to reach 6.37 million DSL subscribers, led principally by subscriber increases in Brazil (up 1.27 million) and Mexico (up 912,000). By the end of 2005, there were 20 countries with a DSL subscriber population of more than one million. Half of these are in Europe (both the EU and other Europe), but each region worldwide is represented in the list. Five countries passed the million mark during 2005: Sweden, Switzerland, Mexico, Poland and Turkey. China, which has comfortably the highest DSL country population worldwide, added 9.4 million new subscribers in 2005, and now accounts for almost 94% of the total subscriber base in South and South East Asia. The USA, one of the first markets to deploy DSL commercially, remains the second largest country in the world for this access technology that is at the core of global communications networks. Michael Brusca, chairman and president of the DSL Forum says: "We are continuously developing technical specifications to enhance the ability of service providers to deliver multiple services simultaneously over broadband, efficiently and effectively, providing automated and remote management facilities to increase the quality of the total customer experience. "That, coupled with our inclusive approach to encompass various types of access platform, improves the economics of broadband service delivery, enabling greater global market growth." Of the emerging DSL nations, the Czech Republic, Russia, Thailand, Malaysia, New Zealand and Venezuela all showed over 80% growth in 2005 from a small subscriber base at the end of 2004. India showed the highest percentage growth worldwide (over 400%) to reach 639,000 subscribers by the end December 2005. Even in well-established markets with over a million subscribers at the end of 2004, three countries experienced DSL subscriber growth of over 60%: Australia (up 89.1%), the UK (up 73.2%) and Brazil (up 67%). Four further major countries grew by around 50%: China (up 55.6%), Germany (up 55%), Spain (up 50%) and France (up 49.2%). In terms of market penetration, 17 countries have achieved the initial mass-market status of at least 20% of phone lines delivering broadband DSL services. Major markets with over a million subscribers make up 11 of these, with a further six smaller countries at 20% or more. Of the major markets, Germany and Sweden are fast approaching this mass-market status with over 19% of penetration. China has also significantly increased DSL its penetration - 12.3% of phone lines are delivering services over DSL. In North America, DSL continued its progress with Canada reaching a 16.8% DSL penetration of phone lines. Among smaller population countries, six have already exceeded 20% of telephone lines delivering broadband DSL services to homes and businesses. Iceland and New Zealand are close to reaching mass-market status, with over 19% penetration each. "As more nations join the global DSL community, and an ever-growing number of homes and businesses sign up to the benefits of broadband DSL, simplifying the provisioning and management of multiple services - from data to voice and video - becomes even more important to customer satisfaction and service provider efficiency," says Michael Brusca. "Inside customers' premises, there are increasing numbers and types of devices to connect to the core broadband service, each requiring configuration and management that can now be handled remotely using the growing range of Technical Reports developed by the DSL Forum. "In the coming year, our priority will be to expand that portfolio of specifications even further, and to continue addressing the end-to-end architecture of today's and tomorrow's communications networks." DSL Forum - www.dslforum.org
 |
Subscribe to this comment's feed
Brazil received a huge boost in its international image with its selection as the host of the 2016 Olympics, but it was really just the cherry on top of the overall recognition of the country's ascension to the ranks of one of the world's most important countries. Now, as it finally takes its place on the world scene, there has been a great deal of concern about what kind of image Brazil hopes to project, now that the world is really paying attention. 
The only good thing to say about the visit to Brazil of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, on Monday November 23, is that it was mercifully short and lasted less than 24 hours. Ahmadinejad had his picture taken being hugged by president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva who gave him a warm welcome and said Iran had every right to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. 
The small, coastal town of Condé is located just a twenty minute's drive from João Pessoa, the capital of Paraíba. The Northeast of Brazil has historically been a place of encounter and mixing between peoples. For millenia groups of indigenous people fished, farmed, migrated and sometimes fought along this large, fertile area. 
The Brazilian diplo-MÁ-cia (bad diplomacy) carries on its accelerated course towards the non-acknowledgment of human rights, although sometimes it takes pleasure in saying that it does precisely the opposite. The visit of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is another example of a diplomatic omission that verges on hypocrisy. 
On July 4, 2006, representatives of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay met in Caracas to sign the protocol for the entrance of Venezuela into the Southern Common Market (Mercosur). After two and a half years, the protocol was approved by the legislative bodies of Argentina and Uruguay, and as of now it may be only days away from being ratified by the continent's economic megalith, Brazil. 
Some sectors of the fight against AIDS have suggested that Thabo Mbeki, the former president of South Africa, committed genocide through his absence from the fight against the illness in his country throughout his two terms. 
One hundred and eleven years after Brazil abolished slavery, the number of workers deprived of their freedom is still huge. They raise cattle, produce charcoal, sugar cane or timber. Some of them, most undocumented Bolivians, work in basements of small apparel factories in São Paulo and other metropolis. 
On November 7, 2009 a few friends and I had an opportunity to take a look inside a Brazilian jail outside the city of Rio de Janeiro. We were able to take some amateur footage of our experience on video (see link below). It's no surprise, of course, that the typical Brazilian jail lacks some of the functionality of those in North America or Europe, but our experience that day was quite shocking. 
Depletion of the Amazon Rainforest is not a new concern facing environmentalists, biologists, ecologists, and a growing number of the Amazonian indigenous peoples. For decades they have feared for the fate of the world's most biologically diverse and species-rich hothouse. 
Geisy Arruda made history this week in Brazil, but for all the wrong reasons. What began as a poorly planned fashion statement has become a worldwide tale. Geisy decided to wear a pink mini-dress to her private college in São Paulo state, and after that, all hell broke loose.