Point Topic this week released their latest global DSL figures, which not only indicate that the worldwide DSL total has surpassed 30 million, but that the rate of DSL adoption in China is exploding. With roughly two million DSL lines, China is now the fifth largest DSL adopter behind South Korea, the US, Japan and Germany. While South Korea leads all nations in DSL line totals, the U.S. is expected to become the leader by year's end.

The explosion of Chinese broadband in general was predicted back in October, when research firm Strategy Analytics claimed the country would see 500% growth rates in 2002 and 654.7% in 2003. Nearly three-quarters of Chinese households use DSL, with China Telecom being the predominant provider. The Chinese government has been almost as dedicated to positioning China as a world leader in broadband adoption as it has been in developing web filters and squashing human rights.

Other firms have been equally optimistic about the country's broadband future, with The Yankee group predicting 19.2 million broadband subscribers in China by the end of 2006. In-Stat/MDR was a bit more ambitious, predicting that the country should see 30 to 40 million DSL subscribers alone by 2006, noting that almost three-quarters of current broadband subscribers in China use DSL. Point Topic believes China should be the "biggest broadband country within a few years".



The race for a "broadband Britain" isn't going nearly as well, as the UK is still well behind most countries in DSL adoption. Clocking in with 419,000 DSL lines at the end of September, the UK was ranked 13th in total DSL numbers and 24th in DSL lines per 100 population. Surely not good news for Tony Blair, who recently pledged to spend £1bn on a massive broadband push that would bring high speed internet into every school, university, and hospital.

Earlier this week, the DSL forum released a report (MS Word document) indicating that more than 5 million people worldwide signed up for DSL service between July 1 and Sept. 30 of this year, a twenty percent increase over the previous three-month period. The percentage jump was the largest ever recorded by the DSL Forum, who believe there should be 36 million DSL customers worldwide by year's end and 200 million DSL subscribers by 2005.

The complete Point Topic statistical breakdown can be found at the Point Topic website.