The big picture

The Asia-Pacific region has almost half of the world’s total fixed telephone lines (Figure 1, left) and China alone accounts for almost one third of these. With a penetration rate of 16 fixed phones for every 100 inhabitants, the region is just three points below the world average (Figure 1).

As elsewhere, mobile telephony has grown rapidly in the region. With 1.4 billion mobile phone subscribers, it had the largest share among world regions at the end of 2007. Much of this growth is occurring in China and India, which had over 600 million and 280 million mobile subscribers respectively by mid-2008, representing close to a quarter of the world’s total. China is the world’s leader in terms of the number of mobile subscribers, with India, Indonesia, Japan and Pakistan all in the top ten.

Mobile phones are not only used for voice calls, but also (increasingly) for accessing the Internet through broadband connections. Mobile broadband makes a huge difference to the way in which the Internet can be used. A video clip, for example, can be downloaded via broadband in a matter of minutes or seconds, instead of taking an hour through a dial-up connection (Table 1).
 

The Asia-Pacific region has 42 per cent of the world’s Internet users, and their number continues to grow, reaching more than 500 million in 2007. Growth in low and lower-middle-income economies doubled in 2007, with China alone adding 73 million users. There is clearly a demand for high-speed Internet access and the services it can deliver. And in fact, the Asia-Pacific is the world’s largest broadband market, with a 39-per-cent share at the end of 2007 (see Figure 2). At that point, the region had 133 million subscribers to fixed broadband Internet access, typically provided through wired telephone connections using digital subscriber line (DSL) technology, or through cable television networks.

“Broadband is increasingly recognized as a key development enabler, facilitating access to health and education services and contributing to economic productivity and competitiveness,” says Mr Al Basheer. “A number of Asia-Pacific economies have implemented sound broadband policies and turned into thriving and highly competitive broadband markets.”

The broadband industry is a significant business in its own right. The Asia-Pacific’s top twenty broadband operators — accounting for some 80 per cent of the region’s total fixed broadband subscribers — earned over USD 25 billion from broadband access revenues in 2007 (Table 2). The industry also generates billions of dollars in equipment sales for fibre-optic cable, modems and switches. Broadband also creates a platform for generating revenues from voice and video applications. Among the world’s top ten economies with household broadband access, five are from the Asia-Pacific region, with the Republic of Korea in the lead (Figure 3, left). With Hong Kong (China), it also features in the world’s top ten economies in terms of fixed broadband subscribers per 100 inhabitants (Figure 3, right).

However, the report also highlights the significant divide between the region’s high-income economies (where people are living the ultimate high-speed Internet experience), and the low and lower-middle-income economies, where progress towards fixed broadband is slow and Internet access is often limited and comes at a high cost. The report examines key barriers to broadband deployment and recommends a number of steps that governments can take to accelerate the deployment of broadband in countries with limited access.