14 DAY TRIAL // The Internet is becoming a basic human right in some countries and there are plans to implement a minimum guaranteed connection in some, as well. Yet, around the world, the picture is less rosy. While there are well over one billion Internet connections around the world, less than 500 million of them are broadband connections. Earlier numbers from Point Topic show that there were 484 million broadband subscribers at the end of the first quarter of this year.
Following the growth trend, there should be around 500 million at this point, worldwide. Of course, the number of people with access to broadband is higher, since many share a connection if they live in the same home. The interesting stats though are the ones broken down by country. The country with the biggest number of broadband connections, China, may surprise you, though it’s totally understandable.
There were more than 110 million broadband connections in China at the end of Q1 2010, by far the most connected country in the world. The runner up, the US, had less than 90 million followed, after a huge gap, by Japan with about 30 million subscriptions.
Of course, China is the world’s most populated country, so the high numbers are to be expected. In terms of actual market penetration, China does far worse than most developed countries. Still, it has over 200 million Internet users and more than half of those should be using broadband.
With the help of China, but also Japan and South Korea, Asia leads when the stats are broken down by region, followed rather closely by Europe and the two Americas. When it comes to the technology used, DSL is still preferred in the majority of cases, 64 percent. Cable follows with 20 percent of the market and then optic fiber with 13 percent. Most optic fiber connections are in China, 23.2 million, followed by Japan with 17.6 million. [via GigaOm]