Point Topic has released its Trends in Global Broadband Subscribers report for Q3 2016, which shows that copper (DSL) decline is accelerating.
The number of copper lines globally fell by 11.6% year-on-year, while fibre-to-the-home connections increased by 76.9% between Q3 2015 and Q3 2016.
The share of copper-based technologies (DSL, ADSL, and ADSL2+) in the total subscriber figure continued to fall in all regions except Africa.
The fall was especially notable in the Americas, where FTTH and FTTx, which includes VDSL, gained more ground.
In Q3 2016, the FTTH connections in the region constituted 8.02% of all fixed broadband connections – compared to 6.9% in the previous quarter.
The charts below show the broadband technology market share by region and the annual growth in broadband technology subscriber numbers.
This article first appeared on MyBroadband and is republished with permission.


That top graph tells me that cable and copper (ie ADSL) still dominate actually. It is only in Asia where fibre is the biggest. My uncapped 10mbs ADSL line is the same or better value for money than the fibre options I’ve seen. Maybe it will change in the future, but fibre is not compelling enough for me to change yet.