Fixed broadband service revenues up 7 percent to $188 billion in 2012

Telecom Lead America: Fixed broadband market including DSL, cable, and fiber-optic services generated $188 billion service revenue in 2012, up 7 percent from 2011.

According to ABI Research’s broadband carrier Market Data, fixed broadband service revenue will grow to $251 billion by 2018.

ITU, in its October 2012 report, said broadband prices drop 75 percent globally between 2008 and 2011. Global revenues from telecommunication services reach $1.5 trillion.

The new data, released in ITU’s flagship annual report Measuring the Information Society 2012, rank the Republic of Korea as the world’s most advanced ICT economy, followed by Sweden, Denmark, Iceland and Finland.

Mobile broadband continues to be the ICT service displaying the sharpest growth rates. Over the past year, growth in mobile-broadband services continued at 40 percent globally and 78 percent in developing countries. There are now twice as many mobile-broadband subscriptions as fixed-broadband subscriptions worldwide.

ITU says fixed-broadband services still remain too expensive in most developing countries: by end 2011, the price of a basic, monthly fixed-broadband package represented over 40 percent of monthly gross national income (GNI) per capita. This compares to 1.7 percent in developed economies.

According ABI Research, in 2012, fiber-optic broadband service revenue had its strongest year-over-year growth of 24 percent, while DSL and cable broadband grew 2 percent and 6 percent respectively. Fiber-optic broadband is expected to grow stronger than other platforms throughout the forecast period. In 2018, FTTH revenue should reach $81.6 billion, almost one-third of global broadband service revenue.

Globally, broadband ARPU has continued to decline across all broadband platforms over the past few years.

“The trend is expected to endure as the majority of operators are trying to offer lower prices to capture a larger market share. In some countries like Japan and South Korea, increasing competition from LTE services is expected to pressure fixed broadband operators to offer lower service pricing in the long-term,” said Jake Saunders, VP and practice director of core forecasting.

Fixed broadband market in United States increased to $43 billion in 2012 from $41 billion in 2011. Fiber-optic broadband represents only 7 percent of total broadband revenue in United States. However, the country’s key FTTH operator, Verizon, experienced a 3.1 percent increase in broadband revenue particularly due to higher adoption of its FTTH service, FiOS.

“As more consumers tend to get super-fast broadband which supports online video gaming and HD video services, FTTH adoption will continue to grow. ABI Research forecast that United States FTTH revenue will reach $4 billion at the end of 2013,” said Khin Sandi Lynn, research analyst.

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