High speed internet lines increase by 125 per cent

By PETER GRIFFIN


The number of high-speed internet telephone lines in the country jumped 125 per cent to 81,000 this year, according to the DSL Forum.

With digital subscriber line (DSL) technology the main method of delivering broadband to residential and small and medium-sized businesses, the growth rate is reasonably healthy.

Broadband DSL had attracted an additional 25 million subscribers globally in the past 12 months, reaching 55 million at the end of September 2003.

According to the DSL Forum, DSL now accounts for 11.4 per cent of all telephone lines in the country, putting it in 26th place globally, behind Australia which claimed 20th place with 333,000 DSL subscribers.

Telecom intends signing up 100,000 residential broadband subscribers by the end of next year.

But while the latest figures point to that target being met, the reality is a much more difficult task for Telecom.

The DSL forum counts DSL-enabled lines, regardless of the connection speeds provided to the customer. Telecom is aiming for 100,000 homes connected subscribing to a DSL connection at a speed of at least 256Kbps.

In September it emerged that of around 50,000 residential customers subscribed to Telecom's Jetstream packages, 73 per cent are signed up to Jetstream Starter, a service running at 128Kbps. By international standards, those customers are not officially using broadband, but what the technical community has dubbed "fast narrowband".

The 81,000 DSL lines counted by the forum also take into account the business community, illuminating even further the hefty task facing Telecom, which recently came out with some revamped Jetstream packages aimed at jump-starting DSL uptake in the home.

"We plan to be marketing DSL very heavily next year because we've pretty much got the network capacity everywhere," said Telecom spokesman John Goulter.

Japan, USA, China and South Korea filled the top four places in terms of DSL subscriber numbers. Japan had 9.2 million subscribers, the US 8.2 million and China 7.8 million. China led subscriber growth with 354 per cent.


DSL forum