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The world now has half a billion fixed broadband lines

Broadband analyst company Point Topic reports that the world has half a billion fixed broadband lines since the third week of July 2010.

It’s something that’s a fundamental part of everyday living for many people, and is something that has made the world a much smaller place, at home and in business.

It has taken 11 years to get to half a billion fixed broadband lines in the world.  The Internet, according to Oliver Johnson, CEO of Point Topic, is something that has “taken hold like no technology since the invention of fire.” 

Until broadband arrived to the masses, the Internet itself was mainly confined to Academia, Research and Government.  These were also separate networks at the time, but then came together to begin the formation of the global Internet.  The earliest of these networks was Arpanet in the U.S, which was established in the late 60’s.  It was the first network to use “Packet Switching”, an invention that forms the basis for modern data communications today.

The U.S. had the first wave of broadband lines and growth was strong there in the 90’s and early noughties.  Growth was also strong in the previous decade in Europe, helped along by the uptake of ADSL.  In terms of subscriber numbers, the pattern changed at the end of 2007, when the US was overtaken by China.

Globally, ISPs are collectively adding over 1 million lines a week currently, and Mr. Johnson believes that major growth will be seen in countries including China, India and Brazil.

“It’s not a major surprise that China is top of the list,” says Johnson.  “A quarter of the world’s fixed broadband lines are already there and despite the income disparities we expect penetration to keep growing.”