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Broadband connections rocket

David Meyer ZDNet.co.uk

Published: 29 Mar 2007 16:02 BST

The number of broadband connections in the UK shot up by a third during 2006.

According to analysts at Point Topic, in the fourth quarter of 2006 the number of broadband connections in the country was 13.1 million—up from 9.8 million in the same quarter of 2005. The number of broadband connections worldwide was around 281.3 million at the end of 2006.

The increase of 33 percent was slightly above the global average, which was 31 percent, and it placed the UK seventh on a worldwide table of broadband connectivity. The countries in the top 10 were more or less in the same order as a year before, except Germany which had overtaken South Korea. Top of the list is the US, at 57.3 million connections, followed by China at 51.9 million, then Japan at 26.1 million.

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Within the top 10, France experienced the highest increase in uptake at 40 percent to take it one place in front of the UK.

However, outside the top 10, the picture was radically different, with Turkey showing an increase of 88 percent and India achieving an astounding 152 percent increase in broadband uptake, albeit from a smaller base.

Point Topic also noted that DSL "remains the most popular broadband access technology" with a 65.7 percent market share worldwide. But fibre to the home is becoming more widespread, and currently has more than 10 percent of the market. Less than 1 percent of broadband connections worldwide are by satellite.