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September 23, 2004
Study shows DSL leading in broadband growth
Broadband digital subscriber line (DSL) led a global boom in broadband Internet access over the 12 months ended June 30, growing to about 78 million total subscribers as users of all broadband services surpassed 123 million, the DSL Forum announced Wednesday.
There were more than 30 million new DSL subscribers -- a growth rate of more than 62 percent -- while broadband subscriptions overall grew at 55 percent, according to a DSL Forum statement. DSL's gain in total subscriber numbers was more than double that of cable and other broadband access technologies, the group said. Industry analysis company Point Topic Ltd. compiled the figures for the DSL Forum from carrier records, said Forum spokeswoman Kristi Kosloske.
DSL subscriber growth was fastest in South and East Asia, at 110 percent, followed by 107 percent growth for the year in Africa and the Middle East and 104 percent in Latin America. However, Europe nudged the Asia-Pacific region as a whole out of the top spot for total DSL subscriptions, gaining about 11 million subscribers to surpass 23 million, the statement said. There were just under 23 million DSL users in the Asia-Pacific region.
The most dense DSL deployments remain in East Asia, led by South Korea, where 28.7 percent of phone lines carried DSL in the second quarter of this year. Taiwan had 20.8 percent penetration, and in Hong Kong, 19.6 percent of lines had DSL. Iceland, Belgium and Israel filled out the top five markets for DSL penetration.
Mainland China, excluding Hong Kong, led the world in DSL subscriptions at 12.7 million, jumping up from fourth place a year earlier with nearly 7 million new subscribers. Japan was the second-largest DSL market with just over 12 million subscriptions and the U.S. was third with 11.4 million. South Korea was fourth, with 6.7 million and Germany fifth, with 5 million.
Counting all technologies, the U.S. is the largest broadband market in the world with 29.1 million total subscribers. U.S. DSL subscriptions grew by 4 million, or about 48 percent, in the 12-month period, compared with 31 percent growth in cable and other technologies, the Forum said. DSL's market share in the U.S. is 39 percent, Kosloske said.
By Stephen Lawson
Posted by Chad Dickerson at 12:12 PM
September 17, 2004
U.S. broadband doubles
Broadband penetration has doubled in the U.S. over the last two years, according to Harris Interactive Inc. Broadband access via ISDN (Integrated Service Digital Network), cable, ADSL (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line)/DSL, T1 and T3 lines has risen from 22 percent two years ago to 37 percent at the end of 2003 and 44 percent in mid-2004.
- David Legard
Posted by Chad Dickerson at 02:45 PM
Tough times ahead for semiconductor business
The number of companies building and designing microprocessors is likely to shrink by approximately 40 percent over the next 10 years, analysts from Gartner Inc. predicted at the research firm's Semiconductor Industry Summit conference here in San Francisco Tuesday.
"We're expecting far fewer chip vendors in the next 10 years or so," said Jim Tully, Gartner's vice president and chief of research, speaking to attendees at the conference.
The semiconductor industry was hit hard by a downturn in high-technology spending that began in 2001, before recovering late last year. However, this recovery is not expected to last. Gartner research predicts that there will be weakness in the semiconductor market through 2006, combined with consolidation in the industry, Tully said.
As chip makers begin integrating features like processing, networking and graphics onto single chips, many companies that today focus on a particular system function will have to change their ways. That will, in turn, lower the number of chip-makers in the industry, Gartner research predicts.
Pat Gelsinger, Intel's senior vice president and chief technology officer, agreed that consolidation is in store for the industry.
The move toward including a greater number of systems components on microprocessors will also put pressure on chip companies that do not own manufacturing facilities, called fabs, Gelsinger said, during a question-and-answer session with conference attendees.
"That's one of the reasons you're seeing design costs for some of the fab-less guys going up," Gelsinger said. "That will drive consolidation going forward."
Gelsinger predicted that Intel will maintain its historical pace of doubling processor performance every two years for at least another decade, at which point the company will be building chip components using a 20-nanometer (nm) process -- far smaller than the 90nm process that is just now becoming state of the art. A nanometer is one-billionth of a meter.
By the time it is using a 20nm process, Intel expects to be building processors in the "20 billion transistor range," Gelsinger said. Intel's current Itanium 2 processors contain approximately 500 million transistors.
However, more advanced process technologies, and the added complexity they introduce, will slow down the rate at which these "fab-less" companies can bring their own chips to market, Gelsinger said. "It's going to increase the separation of the haves and have nots"
And keeping pace with the technology required to maintain a state-of-the-art fab is not cheap, Gelsinger added. "If you're not investing at the rate of US$2 billion capital (per year), get out of the business," he said.
Though Intel experienced weaker than expected consumer PC sales during the recent back-to-school period in the U.S., the company sees potential in countries like China, India and Brazil, Gelsinger said. "We've not given up on the PC market...we think there's still a growing business there, especially when you consider it geographically," he said.
"Ultimately the semiconductor business can be five or 10 times the size it is today," he said. "There are a few turbulent years of cycles between now and then, but ultimately it's a growth business."
But the industry will not hit the high growth rates Wall Street analysts once expected, Gartner said. "We saw 16 percent growth up to 1996," said Tully, predicting that rate will drop to 10 percent through 2010.
Part of the problem is that the industry has simply gotten too large to continue to grow as rapidly as it once did, said conference attendee Roger Reak, general manager of Mitsubishi Electric Automation Inc.'s semiconductor business group.
"The market has achieved a size where growth rates can't be at the levels they were in the 70s, 80s , and 90s," he said.
- Robert McMillan
Posted by Chad Dickerson at 02:37 AM
September 09, 2004
US broadband users triple in less than three years
The number of broadband users in the U.S. nearly tripled in the past two and a half years to more than 48 million subscribers, according to a report released Thursday by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC).
High-speed lines providing connectivity of more than 200K bps (bits per second) in at least one direction almost tripled from June 2001 to December 2003, from 9.6 million lines to 28.2 million lines, according to the FCC report. The number of subscribers to advanced services providing connection speeds of more than 200K bps in both directions has more than tripled since the FCC's last report, from 5.9 million lines in June 2001 to 20.3 million lines in December 2003.
Cable modem and DSL (Digital Subscriber Line) services provided the vast majority of advanced services lines, with cable representing 75.3 percent and DSL representing 14.9 percent. The percentage of cable lines increased from the 2001 report, when 56 percent of broadband lines were cable, according to the FCC.
About 18.1 million residential and small business customers subscribed to the faster advanced services lines in late 2003, compared to 4.3 million lines in 2001, according to the FCC.
As of December 2003, only 6.8 percent of U.S. ZIP codes reported no high-speed lines, compared to 22.2 percent of ZIP codes with no reported lines in June 2001. There has also been significant growth in the percent of ZIP codes reporting four or more providers of high-speed lines, from 27.5 percent in June 2001 to 46.3 percent in December 2003.
The report shows the U.S. has "turned the corner on the digital migration," FCC Chairman Michael Powell said. "This country finds its greatest strength in its diversity," Powell said in a statement. "Today's report shows that America's broadband future is built on the most diverse -- and therefore strongest -- foundation possible. It describes a marketplace of increasing choice built upon multiple broadband platforms."
But Commissioner Michael Copps noted that the U.S. is ranked seventh among nations in broadband penetration. In Japan and South Korea, consumers can get speeds of more than 8,000K bps for similar prices that U.S. customers pay for much slower speeds, he said. "Why ... is the FCC still collecting data about 200K bps service and calling it broadband?" he said in a statement.
Copps called for a comprehensive U.S. strategy to improve broadband services.
- Grant Gross
Posted by Chad Dickerson at 11:30 PM