Huge growth, slow speeds

On a global grand scale, the broadband fortunes of China and Germany couldn’t be more polarised.

While China Telecom adds a further 810,000 broadband subscribers in one month alone (Sky sees an average increase of 200,000 broadband subscribers per quarter), it’s been revealed German citizens are struggling to get any kind of service at all.

820,000 Bavarian households are unable to access the national broadband network, leaving around 4% of the German population with zero broadband options in the home. Indeed, according to Bitkom, only 14 in every 100 German households utilises a broadband connection.

This inertia demonstrated by German broadband users is widely blamed on the nation’s satisfaction with ISDN dial-up!

Vorsprung durch technik? Nein danke.

The Chinese telecoms take-up statistics on the other hand are startling.

The merging of China’s leading telecoms companies, China Unicom and China Netcom, has resulted in a company that boasts 259 million subscribers (128 million GSM, 109 million fixed line and 23.36 million broadband).

China Mobile, another leading telecoms company, has 430 million existing subscribers, and is estimated to be adding seven million new users on a monthly basis.

However, with current home broadband speeds in China reaching a ceiling of 2Mbps, the country would need an increase in bandwidth before these companies can offer such facilities as HD video, online gaming and flawless VoIP and IPTV services.