(openPR) - Stuttgart, Germany - According to InfoCom’s latest release of its Broadband Monitoring Service, at end-2008, there were more than 122m broadband connections in the EU-25 representing over 18% increase from the previous year, with prices and access speeds, which have improved significantly. Broadband penetration per household grew to over 62% (+9% YoY). xDSL is still the dominant broadband technology with 74% of the total market followed by cable modem with 14%. 2008 was characterised by a certain uptake of mobile broadband, which increased by 4 percentage points to over 10% in 2008. FTTx connections still represent only 2% of the total broadband market.

Mobile broadband nearly doubled its subscription base in one year from 6.5m to 12.6m in 2008, showing a certain uptake in Europe thanks to the impact of a number of factors, among which price cuts, the offering of flat-rate plans and improved HSPA network coverage. Austria and Finland are the clear market leaders with a relatively high penetration rates compared to the other countries.

The total broadband market in the EU-25 will continue to grow over the next five years despite many countries are reaching saturation levels especially for fixed broadband. The strongest drivers for growth will be fixed broadband for rural areas and, especially, mobile broadband.

About Broadband Quarterly Monitoring Service: The Broadband Quarterly Monitoring is currently available on a yearly subscription basis. It provides a large amount of indicators - among which ULL lines, DSL & FTTx, CaTV and cable modem subscribers, ARPU - for over 30 countries worldwide, with forecasts until 2012. Broadband Quarterly Monitoring is only one of several Quarterly Monitoring Services that InfoCom provides. To know more, please contact us.
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About InfoCom: InfoCom is a market research and consultancy company with over 20 years experience providing strategic analyses and planning assistance to stakeholders in the telecommunications, IT and multimedia industries. InfoCom’s independent and fact-based analyses highlight trends and opportunities, supporting decision makers to understand market dynamics in order to improve their competitive advantage

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