[Infonetics]: 1B Fixed Broadband Subscribers by 2019 (5% CAGR)

A new report by Jeff Heynen [pictured], principal analyst for broadband access and pay TV, Infonetics Research finds that "global fixed broadband subscribers, including DSL, cable broadband, FTTH, and FTTB+LAN subscribers. (Infonetics tracks mobile broadband subscribers in its Mobile Services and Subscribers report.) grew 8 percent in 2014, reaching 733 million as service providers around the world continue to steadily add subscribers" 

The report forecasts that "global fixed broadband subscribers to grow at a 5 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) from 2014 to 2019, led by China, Russia, Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam.

• Though DSL remains far and away the largest technology choice for fixed broadband, subscriber growth is being driven by FTTH and DOCSIS 3.0
   
• FTTH subscribers jumped 22 percent in 2014 from 2013, crossing the 100 million threshold for the first time"

See "Infonetics Projects Fixed Broadband Subscribers to Approach 1 Billion in 2019, Led by China" - here.

China's MNOs Plan to Surcharge OTT Voice and Messaging

Every country has to go through such debate (Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, Korea) and then it is for the regulator to decide in favor of the consumers (so the Netherlands has a Net Neutrality law) or the operators (Korea).

Paul Mozur reports to the ChinaRealTimeReport blog (on WSJ) that "rumors emerged that [China’s state-run telecom companies] working on a plan to charge for the use of the country’s most popular free mobile application, which they did not develop and do not operate. The application in question is WeChat, a messaging and social media program created by China’s largest listed Internet company Tencent. Since its introduction two years ago, the app, which allows users to send voice and text messages and also share photos with groups of contacts, has accrued more than 300 million users".

"Chinese media have reported in recent weeks that China’s three telecom service providers have been meeting with the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology to work out a way to charge for the service".

See "Outrage Online Over Rumored Threat to Beloved App" - here.

China's Plans for 2015: IPv6 ($25B investment), 5X Access Speed

 

Gao Yuan and Chen Limin report to China Daily that ".. The country will put the Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6)-based network into small-scale commercial pilot use by the end of 2013, and deploy and commercialize the IPv6-based network on a large scale between 2014 and 2015, according to a statement released after an executive meeting of the State Council that was presided over by Premier Wen Jiabao .. By 2010, China had about 278 million IPv4 addresses, according to data from the China Internet Network Information Center. That was far fewer than the 450 million Internet users who live in the country".

Hu Qiheng (pictured), director-general of the Internet Society of China said: "The development of IPv6 is one of the most important tasks for China's Internet industry during the 12th Five-Year Plan period, from 2011 to 2015".

See "New Internet protocol to undergo test" - here.

According to Shenyin & Wanguo Securities, "China's development of the Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6)-based network will attract 160 billion yuan [$25B] investment" (here).
 

In parallel, Zhu Shenshen reports to the Shanghai Daily that "China is to increase Internet access speed by five times and cut broadband costs .. By 2015, China's average broadband bandwidth will hit 20 megabytes [megabits] per second (Mbps) in urban areas, almost five times the current level. In rural areas, the bandwidth will reach 4 Mbps .. By the end of November, China had 155 million family broadband users and 119 million 3G phone users .. 11 million Internet Protocol TV users and 40 million mobile video users "

See "Internet faster, cheaper by 2015" - here.    

 

China: Foreign VoIP Services are Illegal (affecting 450M users)

   

People's Daily Online reports that "The Chinese regulator has declared Internet phone services other than those provided by China Telecom and China Unicom as illegal, which is expected to make services like Skype unavailable in the country".

See "VoIP decision means Skype now illegal" - here.

"The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said all VoIP (voice over Internet protocol) phone services are illegal on the Chinese mainland, except those provided by telecommunications carriers China Telecom and China Uniom. The ministry gave no timetable on when the ruling takes effect .. The decision is expected to make Skype, UUCall and other similar services unavailable in China"

In related news, a recent report (here) states that "The number of Chinese netizens had risen to 450 million by the end of November, up 20.3 percent year on year, Wang Chen (picture), head of China's State Council Information Office, said Thursday..Wang said China hopes to work with other countries to safeguard online security and boost Internet development and supervision"

See - "Is it Possible to Block Skype with DPI? " - here.

Web Filtering Study from Sprouts

    

A recent document published by Sprouts covers the Web Filtering technology and implementation.

See "A Concise Study of Web Filtering" - here.

The document covers:

• Web filtering techniques: Rating, black list, keyword  matching and Dynamic Filtering
   
• Deployment options: national , ISP, organization, individual or 3rd party level
   
• The national deployments in Australia, Canada, UK and China.

Web filtering is a perfect add-on to DPI systems, and may be used as a Value-added Service by ISPs (as well as regulation conformance).



Related posts:

• DPI Deployment (15) : TalkTalk Uses Huawei to Detect Malware (or Parental Control ?)  - here
• Chile: First Country to Legislate Net Neutrality  - here
• Israeli Police Instructs ISPs to Block Gambling Web Sties - here
• Australia: Telstra, Optus and Primus Agree to Voluntarily Block Illegal Web Traffic - here
• DPI Deployments (9): Orange France Selects Openet and Cisco for Parental Control and Tethering Prevention - here
• Kosher Mobile Internet - Cellcom Israel Offers Web Filtering - here

Welcome China!

   
It is almost half a year since I started my Broadband Traffic Management Blog (January 30, here). This is my 224th post, and Google Analytics reports very nice growth in traffic to the blog. It seems that traffic management, DPI, policy management, Net Neutrality and other related issues are hot topic these days among vendors and service providers.

I am using a great tool - Excellent Analytics to analyze Google Analytics' information in Excel. An interesting piece of information is visitors' demographics - so far I had visits from 107 countries. The Top3 are the homelands of the DPI industry: USA (Cisco, Procera), Israel (Allot) and Canada (Sandvine) - together accounting for more than 50% of the visits to the blog. Nevertheless I had visits from Åland Islands  (population: 27,000), Aruba, French Polynesia and so many other places I wish to visit one day.
 

However - up to this morning - China was missing from the list. Today, at 3AM GMT someone from Beijing was my first Chinese visitor. Welcome! 

Since I am using Google's Blogger platform -this first visit today may represent further changes to Google availability in China - see "Google gets its license to operate in China renewed" - here - as it seems that Blogger is now available.