According to the TIA, the U.S. broadband market is expected to reach an estimated 56.9 million subscribers by 2008, growing from 32.5 million subscribers in 2004. For details, check out the TIA's 2005 Telecommunications Market Review and Forecast, an annual study of the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA). The broadband market has grown substantially since 2001, when there were only 5.1 million subscribers.

According to the survey, in 2004, the number of high-speed subscribers in the United States grew by 35.4 percent to reach 32.5 million subscribers, consisting of the following access technologies: cable modem (17.0 million), DSL (12.6 million), fixed wireless (2.2 million), fiber-to-the-home (0.2 million), satellite (0.4 million), mobile wireless (3G) (0.1 million) and broadband over power line (less than 50,000).

Comparison Between Cable and DSL Broadband Access

Faster speeds are driving demand for cable modem and digital subscriber line (DSL) providers. With telephone companies becoming more aggressive in rolling out bundled DSL services and cable operators losing subscribers to direct broadcast satellite, the gap between cable and DSL narrowed in 2004 and will continue to decrease through 2008. In 2005, for example, DSL is expected to experience a greater percent growth (19.8 percent) than cable modems (17.1 percent). Despite DSL gains to 12.6 million subscribers, however, cable modems remained the dominant broadband technology in 2004, with 17 million subscribers.

Broadband Market To Reach 56.9 Million Subscribers By 2008

Even with fewer subscribers, DSL leads in service revenue and will grow at a 14.3 percent compound annual rate to \$13.6 billion in 2008 from \$8 billion in 2004. This growth will be fueled by a 14.6 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) in DSL subscribership, from 12.6 million in 2004 to 21.7 million in 2008.  Cable modem service revenue, on the other hand, will expand at a 6.1 percent CAGR from \$8.6 billion in 2004 to \$10.9 billion in 2008.

Some thoughts after reading this report. Cable companies will always have free ads on their networks so how will DSL compete with free ads? Will WiMAX or BPL or broadband over power lines make a more noticeable dent in such surveys in the future? BTW, who is using BPL? If you are, please respond to this entry as I would like to write about your experiences.