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Number of IPTV Customers Doubles, Broadband Subscription Grows

By Calvin Azuri, TMCnet Contributing Editor

The Broadband Forum, known as DSL Forum, has announced in their latest Broadband and IPTV (News - Alert) statistics by industry analysts Point Topic, that, while global broadband subscribers reached 370 million, IPTV subscribers crossed the 15 million mark, which is 65 percent of the world's subscribers.

 

The announcement was made in the Broadband World Forum Asia in Hong Kong. IPTV subscribers have more than doubled for the second year running. The increase has been almost 53.14 percent, from March 2007 to March 2008.

 

This phenomenal growth has been seen in emerging markets such as Eastern Europe, Latin America and the Middle East and Africa.

 

A 33 percent increase in fiber subscriptions may be due to an increase in popularity of bandwidth hungry services such as IPTV. ADSL2plus today delivers IPTV technology to more than 12 million subscribers.

 

John Bosnell, senior analyst, Point Topic said, "IPTV operators around the world have shown that systems are scalable and can handle rapid growth in subscriber numbers. However, developing and agreeing standards will help these operators deliver IPTV more simply and effectively over a variety of access technologies and help to drive higher uptake in other markets."

 

The Broadband Forum has broadened its offering in the past few years, thus initiating this revolutionary growth in fiber subscribers. They first issued access agnostic management specifications. And now, the Forum is working towards integrating fiber with existing broadband architectures and management platforms worldwide to ensure its success.

 

Vendors and service providers look at maximizing revenues, lowering management complexities, minimizing truck roll and introducing new revenue generating services. The TR-142 thus allows them to remotely configure, troubleshoot and manage a Passive Optical Network (PON).

 

George Dobrowski, chairman and president of the Broadband Forum said, "This report shows that although DSL remains the key vehicle for delivering broadband associated services, alternative access technologies, such as fiber, are increasing their footprints and their requirements need to be considered in our work."

 

Established in 1994 as the ADSL Forum and later as the DSL Forum, the Broadband Forum has grown over the past 14 years from a physical layer ADSL transport specification specialist to an advanced transport and management specification specialist, for all forms of broadband.

 

Point Topic is an analyst company focusing entirely on broadband. They provide up-to-date and authoritative user statistics, supplier profiles and applications reports on DSL, FTTx, cable and other broadband services worldwide.

 

Calvin Azuri is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To read more of Calvin’s articles, please visit his columnist page.