WORLDWIDE MARKET RESEARCH REPORT - CISE

EC/IST FP6 Project No 026920
Work Package: 6
Type of document: Report
Date: 20.12.2007
File name: OP_WP6_D37_V1.0.doc Version: 1.0
Title: Worldwide Market Research Report 196 / 356
December 2006. Fibre subscribers alone in Japan outnumber total broadband subscribers in
23 of the 30 OECD countries. The presence of the fiber optics in Africa is very scarce, but it
is in increase.
Wireless services like iBurst and satellite connections continue to struggle to win a
significant market share in the OECD. Currently 98% of all broadband connections in the
OECD, defined as services with download speeds equal to or faster than 256 kbit/s, are
fixed line offerings. DSL is the most popular connection with 62% market share, followed by
Cable modems with 29% and Fibre connections with 7%. All other broadband connections,
including satellite, fixed wireless and power line communication, account for less than 2% of
the broadband connections in the OECD. In South Africa around half of all broadband
connections are wireless which is mainly due to the high cost and poor service offerings in
the fixed line space.
[A32] Anyway, in Africa, according to Balancing Act’s Voice and Data Forecasts the thirst for
broadband is driving bandwidth growth. The rapid take-up of broadband in general and
wireless broadband in particular has driven increases in internet bandwidth and will be the
prime driver of growth over the next five years.
Additional growth from dial-up subscriptions over the forecast period to 2011 will be 689
Mbps. But growth from all forms of broadband over the forecast period to 2011 will be 43,529
Mbps, almost a tripling of bandwidth required. Wireless broadband may well be a much
larger contributor than ADSL to bandwidth growth in Sub-Saharan Africa. Although ADSL
dominates demand in those countries already connected to broadband, the most rapid
growth will probably come from wireless broadband.
International voice traffic continues to grow at rates above the world average. Its rate of
growth 23.4% CAGR for Africa and 13.8% CAGR for the world, is above the world average.
Satellite carried 45.3% of Africa’s international voice traffic in 2006. Although there are a
number of marine and terrestrial fibre projects that will come into use, the fall in the use of
satellite will be relatively small across the forecast period, dropping to 41% in 2011 if no