28 June 2005
The world's number of broadband lines totalled 164 million by the end of March this year, according to new figures.
Point-Topic found that over the past year, 52 million broadband lines have been added, more than half of which, in the last six months.
The US has the most number of lines, with 36.5 million, followed by China with 28.3 million.
The UK leads the growth in the G7 countries, increasing its number of lines by 16.5 per cent over the first quarter of 2005, with an additional one million lines.
The highest level of broadband penetration was found in South Korea with 25 per cent, but Western European countries such as the Netherlands and Denmark were closing in.
Of the 164 million global broadband lines, 107 million of them were from DSL operators.