The global number of DSL customers has reached over 200 million, with more than 20 percent living in China, the DSL Forum announced at the Broadband World Forum Asia in Beijing.



Making the milestone announcement, Robin Mersh, Chief Operating Officer of the DSL Forum, a global organization of over 200 members dedicated to developing the full potential of DSL and other access technologies, cited figures from analyst Point Topic, which show a 29 percent increase in the number of DSL customers inside the last twelve months.

On a global scale, DSL remains by far the most popular broadband access technology and has held on to its market share of over 65 percent with subscriber numbers increasing by over six percent in the last quarter. In comparison, subscribers in China rose by 11 percent over the same period and DSL now accounts for 73 percent of the Chinese broadband market. With over 43 million of the world's DSL subscribers, China is now the largest provider of DSL-based services and continues to develop and improve broadband service provision for users throughout the country.



"DSL is clearly the preferred method of delivering an efficient broadband service, particularly in China, and with the growing popularity of technologies such as IPTV we expect DSL subscriptions to continue to rise," comments Robin Mersh. "The DSL Forum's role continues to be focused on developing the full potential of DSL and alternative broadband technologies, and with over 200 million customers, our work now targets improvements in speed, quality of experience for IPTV, VoIP and the emerging market of fixed mobile convergence.

"The Forum's membership has increased rapidly in Asia over the past few years and it's easy to see why," continues Robin. "Service providers in this region have been aggressive in rollout and both providers and equipment manufacturers have strong thought and market leadership in the areas of new broadband applications and digital home advancement. What originally began as proprietary deployment solutions in Asia are now moving to industry standards to ensure cost effective and fast deployment growth."

Since its beginning in 1994, the DSL Forum has moved from defining transport layer solutions for DSL to directly addressing the service delivery and quality of service support of devices over DSL, fiber, etc. As service providers began to incorporate fiber into their networks, the DSL Forum was called on to develop the common remote management standards that are access agnostic and give providers a common platform for management of their diverse networks.