For all the hype over fiber being the preferred last-mile technology for delivering triple-play IPTV, the vast majority of the world's 15.4 million IPTV subscribers - just over 12 million, in fact - are connected via DSL, according to Point Topic. Little surprise, given that Point Topic also reports that as of Q1 2008, 65% of the world's broadband subscribers are using xDSL. Fiber subscriber numbers are growing faster than DSL these days, but still accounted for just 11% of the global broadband pie. Perhaps more revealing, however, is that DSL-based IPTV is mostly running on ADSL2plus rather than VDSL2. While VDSL2 promises much faster bandwidth speeds than ADSL2plus, it also has a shorter loop range and is reportedly much more expensive to roll out (albeit still cheaper than fiber). That's not stopping VDSL2-based rollouts - especially for telcos deploying it as part of broader fiber-to-the-node rollout strategies - but for the time being, it's not resulting in a lot of ADSL replacement either.
展开▼
