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• In 3Q08, IP set-top boxes (STBs) account for 70 percent of
the total IPTV and SDV equipment revenue.
• IPTV middleware sales are up 21 percent in 3Q08, and
video content protection software sales are up 14 percent.
• In 3Q08, Motorola continued to lead the lucrative IP STB
market, although Cisco increased its market share 6 points,
putting it in a very close second place.
• Harmonic maintains a strong lead in the worldwide IP
video encoder market, leading all segments, including
MPEG-2 and standard definition (SD) and high definition
(HD) MPEG-4 encoders.
• The competitive operator Iliad Group of France leads in the
number of IPTV subscribers, with 3 million in 3Q08.
• North America is the leading region for total IPTV and
Global Broadband Subscribers
Reach 400 Million
Global broadband subscribers have now reached the milestone
of 400 million, according to a report prepared
for the Broadband Forum by industry analysts Point
Topic (www.point-topic.com). Since its inception, broadband
has morphed from simple Internet access into triple play service
delivery and has become an integral part of people’s lives, both
at home and at work.
In 1998 there were just 57,200 broadband subscribers globally.
Only a year later, this number had increased nearly six
times over, to 280,890 subscribers worldwide. DSL quickly became
the most popular choice of delivery technology. The past
10 years have seen a 600,000 percent increase in the number of
subscribers – 300 percent in the last five years alone – to reach
the 400 million mark.
Independent communications providers serving rural and
high-cost areas have witnessed a dramatic rise in take rates
for their broadband offerings, despite increasing competition,
according to survey results from the National Telecommunications
Cooperative Association (NTCA).
All of the respondents to NTCA’s annual Broadband/Internet
Availability Survey offer broadband to some part of their
customer base, compared to just 58 percent of respondents in
the 2000 survey. Nearly all (93 percent) of respondents indicated
they face competition in the provision of advanced services
from a diverse group including ISPs, WISPs, cable companies,
electric utilities and local ISPs.
Ninety-nine percent of respondents indicated they use DSL to
provide Internet access, though fiber deployment is seeing some
gains, with 44 percent employing fiber to the home (FTTH) or
SDV revenue due to the fierce rivalry between telcos and cable
operators, but Europe is running a close second. BBP
Over the same period, access technology evolved to include
fiber, which began in 2002 with 18,000 subscribers. Fiber networks
now deliver broadband services to over 45 million people
across the globe.
Oliver Johnson, senior analyst with Point Topic, explains,
“When Point Topic started researching broadband in 1998 it
was still mostly in the technical trial stage. Getting to 400 million
subscribers in the 10 years since then has been one of the
fastest rollouts of a major new technology the world has ever
seen. Now we’re in the early days of a new era, which is going
to be much more about quality than quantity. The emphasis is
now going to shift to providing high-bandwidth, high-quality
broadband that can deliver multiple, steady, pin-sharp images
for applications.” BBP
Independent Telcos Make Broadband
Available in Rural America
fiber to the curb, up from 32 percent the previous year.
Seventy-one percent of respondents with a fiber deployment
strategy plan to offer fiber to the node to more than threequarters
of their customers by the end of 2009, with 74 percent
planning to offer FTTH to 25 percent of their customers over
that same time frame. The majority of respondents (86 percent)
identified the costs of fiber deployment as the most serious challenge
to their efforts.
An increasing number of providers are offering a video play,
with 68 percent of respondents indicating a current video offering,
up from 63 percent in 2007. This year’s survey also saw a
slight decrease in voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) offerings,
down one percent from 2007, though nearly half the respondents
(44 percent) said they do have plans to offer VoIP in the
foreseeable future. BBP
14 | BROADBAND PROPERTIES | www.broadbandproperties.com | January/February 2009