23 August 2002 -- Driven by the continued surge of Internet usage across Asia-Pacific, broadband offerings virtually became the bread and butter in carriers' service portfolios last year. Even in developing countries where infrastructure remains patchy, network providers have set their sights on massive network broadband deployments.
According to the Yankee Group Report Asia-Pacific Broadband Access: Market Review and Outlook, the number of broadband subscribers (both ADSL and cable modem) in Asia-Pacific will swell to around 64.5m by year-end 2006 from 12.9m at the end of 2001.
"Among the 13 economies, China clearly represents a market with huge potential. We expect the Chinese broadband market will expand from merely 323,400 broadband subscribers to become a regional hub topping the marketplace with an expected 19.2m broadband subscribers by year-end 2006," says Yankee Group senior analyst and Report author Agatha Poon.
In addition to ADSL and cable modem services, industry dynamics are quickly turning the tide toward cost-effective broadband alternatives, namely optical Ethernet and fixed wireless access services. In China, for instance, broadband providers offer Ethernet-based broadband services at a monthly rate of less than EUR20 with connection speeds of 10Mbit/s.
In the report, the Yankee Group presents the latest ADSL and cable modem subscriber forecasts in 13 Asia-Pacific economies through 2006, as well as identifies factors shaping the broadband uptake in individual markets.
The report also discusses the current status of broadband application provisioning in the Asia-Pacific and immediate challenges facing existing broadband providers. Last but not least, we use China's Ethernet market as a point of reference to examine the prospects of Ethernet in the region's broadband access arena.