US Still Occupies the Middle of the OECD Broadband Ranking

PARIS - For the first time, Switzerland tops the world broadband rankings, with 39.9 fixed-broadband subscribers per 100 inhabitants, followed by the Netherlands (39.1) and Denmark (37.9). The average for the countries that belong to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is 25.6, according to new statistics published by that group. The United States is slightly above the OECD average.

Fixed wireline broadband subscriptions in the OECD area reached 314 million at the end of 2011, although growth slowed to 1.8 percent in the second half of the year. Subscriptions rose year over year by 4.1 percent. Greece, Poland and Chile experienced the highest growth rates, of 6 percent, to reach 21.8, 15.0 and 11.7 respectively.

OECD Fixed (wired) broadband subscriptions per 100 inhabitants, by technology, December 2011


The overall share of DSL subscriptions continues to decrease (now 55.8 percent) to the benefit of cable (now 30 percent) and especially fiber to the home (now 13.7 percent).

Wireless broadband subscriptions showed healthy growth of more than 13 percent in the last six months, and Korea (100.6) and Sweden (98.0) continue to top the table. The global number of wireless broadband subscriptions in OECD countries totals 667 million, up from 590 million in June 2011.

Complete December 2011 broadband statistics are available at: http://www.oecd.org/sti/ict/broadband