China may still be the reigning FTTH growth champion, but a new Point Topic report shows that the Americas also saw FTTH technology share increase in the third quarter, mainly led by the United States and Canada. The research firm noted that the U.S. is the second country which passed 100 million broadband connections last quarter, and it will be a while before the next contender reaches the same milestone.
Driven by growth in parts of Asia, Africa and Latin America, overall wireline broadband subscribers rose 1.36 percent to nearly 740 million. The research firm said it was the second highest gain in the last six quarters, with first quarter of 2014 being the exception.
Perhaps not surprisingly, fiber is the fastest growing broadband access technology. During the quarter, fiber subs grew 57 percent year-over-year in the third quarter, surpassing wireless with 17.1 percent, fiber-to-the-x (FTTX) with 14.4 percent, satellite with 10 percent, cable with 6.8 percent, and other technologies with 5.3 percent. At the same time, copper-based DSL service subs declined 15 percent. Telecompaper article (sub. req.)