Evolution in Broadband Technology and Future of Wireless Broadband - Adoption, Usage, and Global Impact of Broadband Technologies - page 223

Dynamics of Fixed Broadband
in Countries around the World

If we compare the ranking of the top 5 countries
by penetration rate in 2002 with that in 2008, we
find that not a single country is common between
the two lists. The trend in penetration rates for
these 10 countries over the last 7 years are shown
in the Figures 1 and 2.
The two plots in Figures 1 and 2 clearly show
a significant difference in the growth for penetra-
tion in the last 7 years among the two sets of
countries. The first set of countries that were
ranked within the top 5 in 2002 was advanced in
BB penetration in the early part of this decade.
However, our estimates show that their growth
rates slowed down relative to the countries that
are ranked within the top 5 in 2008. The second
set of countries experienced a higher growth in
penetration for BB access technology in the recent
years. The statistical analysis of the BB data in
the next section will explain this phenomenon in
detail.
It is important to mention at this point that these
estimated BB penetration rates are based on the
definition of BB subscriber and the penetration
rate used by ITU in building their database 16 .

The underlying dynamics of the observed phe-
nomena in the last section will be clear if we
analyze farther the growth pattern of BB sub-
scribers in various countries around the world.
A matrix plot of observed BB penetration for
217 different countries between years 1998 and
2008 is shown in Figure 3. To accommodate the
variability associated with the penetration levels
across different countries, we transform the data
using a logarithmic transformation.
The trend displayed by the temporal shape and
the level of the curve by country clearly indicates
the heterogeneous nature of the BB adoption
dynamics across all countries around the world.
Also significant differences in diffusion rates are
observed among continents at the aggregate
level and among various countries within a given
continent. There could be several underlying
reasons for this variability. In addition to that, the
available time series is incomplete for many
countries due to missing data. Thus given the
complicated nature of the data for BB adoption

Figure 2. Trend in penetration rates of top 5 countries (ranking based on 2002)