the internet bureau addition, page-14

re: love it: the internet bureau addition Broadband connections rise

08jun06

AUSTRALIA was the developed world's fifth heaviest user of broadband internet in 2005, an OECD report says.

The report says the number of connections in Australia rose 6 per cent in the year – well above the 3.3 per cent OECD average and ahead of Britain, the US and Japan.

It said Australia's broadband subscriber numbers had grown from one in 100 people in 2001 to 14 a 100 in 2005.

Fourteen of every 100 people now have a broadband connection across OECD nations.

In four countries – Iceland, Korea, the Netherlands and Denmark – the figure is higher than one in four people.

By far the leading platform is DSL, or digital subscriber line, but cable subscribers outnumber DSL in Canada and United States.

Fibre, which Telstra is proposing for Australia, is becoming increasingly popular in Japan and Korea.

Japan now has 4.6 million fibre subscribers and Korean fibre-based connections grew more than 52 per cent during 2005.