Broadband Usage To Hit 500 Million By 2010The growth of the internet has been so overwhelming that it is predicted that the number of those who will take advantage of broadband usage worldwide will reach 500 million by the year 2010 or three years from now. This is still a safe estimate and the mark may have already been hit as early as now considering the rise in internet users worldwide. Usage statistics show that the United States ranks the highest in the number of people with broadband subscriptions followed by China. The amazing this is that there is a great possibility that China will surpass broadband usage in the US soon. Conservative estimates show that there are more than a billion internet subscribers worldwide as of last year, including those who have broadband and dial up connections. Data shows that over 47 million Americans have broadband connections today but Chins is expected to grab the record soon with a projected broadband subscriber base of up to 500 million three years from now. Other countries are however not begging out of the competition. Europeans and Asians are starting to get on with the broadband internet craze. Three Asian countries are following the US with a combined 34.74 percent share in the number of people with broadband subscriptions. These countries are China with 15.5%, Japan with 12.2% and South Korea with 6.04%. Also in the running for the country with most number of broadband subscribers are three European countries namely France with a 4.42% share, Germany with a 4.40% share and the United Kingdom with a 4.35% share. Industry experts agree that broadband is among, if not the top growing technologies in the world today with the total number of broadband lines growing from 79.4m in June 2003 to 89.4m during the third quarter of the same year. This growth is considered even faster than the growth of the mobile phone industry which took 5.5 years to grow as compared to broadband which only took 3.5 years to grow. If China has been touted before as a sleeping giant with the most number of laborers due to its high population rate, it can now be safely said that it is becoming the top broadband power of the world. Considering the laws of Economics regarding rise in demand resulting to lower prices, the rise in demand for broadband technology has drastically reduced the price of the technology enabling people to have more access and more connections. The broadband technology has also led to a rise n another technology known as the voice over internet protocol which allows people to call numbers abroad without paying the regular phone bills since it makes use of the internet. This technology is spreading in most countries although there have been moves in some Arab nations to block the spread of the technology, in favor of the incumbent national telecoms companies. Thanks to new technologies, the world is getting smaller everyday. And with all continents virtually becoming interconnected, there is ore reason to expect a boom in world trade. |