BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) have been improving their telecommunications infrastructure to cater to a growing demand for bandwidth. Out of these four countries, China has emerged as the leader in the 2.5G Gigabit Passive Optical Network (GPON) equipment realm. Reports by Infonetics Research (News - Alert) show that China alone accounted for more than 90 percent spending in this market and the Chinese manufacturer Huawei heads the list of GPON vendors in the world. Another Chinese vendor, ZTE (News - Alert), has a big presence in all the four BRIC countries. These numbers show the big lead that China has taken in this segment at a time when broadband access and pay TV are catching up in these countries.

The research also showed that VDSL shipments outstripped ADSL shipments for the first time. This is an interesting trend because VDSL (Very High Bitrate Digital Subscriber Line) is capable of generating high speeds when compared to ADSL. It is estimated that VDSL can offer download speeds of 52 Mbps as opposed to ADSL's maximum speed of 8 Mbps. This is why VDSL is used by call centers that rely on VoIP technology and other companies that need large amounts of bandwidth. This growth of VDSL is yet more proof of the growing need for larger bandwidths and higher speeds around the world.

Further, the research showed that the sales of broadband aggregation equipment such as DSL and FTTH grew by 4.6 percent and the revenue for 2013 was close to $7 billion, a 1.6 percent increase over the previous year.

These statistics released by Infonetics Research prove that more and more countries are embracing technology more effectively for their businesses and homes. Broadband connections are expanding and as a result, there is likely to be a huge impact on the way the society consumes digital information.