Fixed-line broadband 'is still the future'

Despite the rising popularity of mobile broadband, research from Datamonitor analysis brand Ovum predicts that fixed-line connections will remain in widespread use until at least the second half of the decade.

By the end of 2015, the market insight provider expects to see as many as 1.4 billion people worldwide making use of both fixed broadband connections at home and mobile broadband while on the move.

However, this is little more than half (53.8 per cent) of the total 2.6 billion fixed-line connections it expects to see in use by that point.

Meanwhile, mobile broadband connections are expected to grow in number to more than three billion individual accounts by that same point, across a customer base of 2.4 billion people.

The Ovum report says: "The majority of those customers with both fixed and mobile broadband will reside in the current developed broadband regions of North America, Western Europe and Asia-Pacific."