The U.S. was the largest broadband market by services revenues in 2008, ahead of Japan and Germany, according to a new report from Pyramid Research (now part of the Light Reading group). (See Heavy Reading Gets Pyramid Power.)
According to data compiled for the report, Global Fixed and Mobile Broadband Outlook, the U.S. generated more than $32 billion in broadband revenues in 2008, a long way ahead of second-place Japan, which generated $23 billion in broadband revenues.
Germany was third in the chart, with more than $11 billion in revenues, followed by China with $7.9 billion.
China, however, still beats the U.S. in terms of the number of fixed broadband connections, with 81.9 million as opposed to the U.S.'s 78.5 million. Japan and Germany come in third and fourth places with 30.3 million and 23.3 million lines, respectively.
According to the report, those four countries will still hold the same positions in the fixed broadband league table in 2013, though China will have more than 220 million fixed broadband lines by then, a long way ahead of the forecast 101 million in the U.S.
That major surge in users will not put China at the top of the broadband revenues chart in 2013, though, according to Pyramid's research team. The report suggests the U.S. will still generate the most broadband revenues in 2013, at more than $40 billion, with Japan in second place and China in third.
The fastest growing market in terms of fixed broadband revenues during the next five years will be Indonesia, which is set to generate nearly nine times more revenues from broadband services in 2013 than in 2008, according to the report's findings.
— Ray Le Maistre, International News Editor, Light Reading
or, perhaps, just maybe, pricing appropriately based on what the market (rather than the gov't) will support.
The weakness that has not been highlighted is data throughput. Japan's data rates are much higher. I expect that a big part of the so called "broadband" in the US is DSL based, where much of it is fiber in Japan.
Japan is about 1/2 the population of the US, but please keep in mind that their area is much, much smaller - a little bigger than California. High population densities are much more efficient and easier to manage for broadband deployments. Not apples to apples.
So U.S. is tops in broadband service revenues, right? But is isn't runner-up Japan a lot smaller in population and size? I'm thinking apples and oranges, but I could be wrong.
Another thing the report shows is that, while the average revenue per subscriber will fall each year for the next five years no matter what the access technology deployed (DSL, FTTx, cable), the global average revenues from fiber access connections will still be some way higher than cable and at least double that from a DSL line.
So, while the up front capex cost of fiber-to-the-home might look somewhat frightening, the revenue payback is set to be much greater than a DSL-based strategy.
This, surely, is the time for governments to provide some sort of stimulus for fiber access builds, because such measures (regulatory or otherwise) will surely boost spending now (by the operators) and then by broadband users in the future, and that's got to be good for macro economics, hasn't it?
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