Broadband use swells to 300 million worldwide

THERE ARE NOW over 300 million broadband surfers on the planet, broadbean counters report. About three of them are in Africa.

According to Point Topic's Global Broadband Statistics service the US and A is still the largest broadband country in the world with over 60 million subscribers. But China is close on the USAsians tails with close to 52 million. It'll be in number one spot within 12 months, the INQ rashly predicts.

The UK is up there with some 14 million while top grwoth areas and eastern Europe and Greece.

The major mover in the top 10 countries by number of subscribers, is France which leapfrogged South Korea to fifth place in the top ten chart for total broadband subscribers.

There are only seven countries in the whole continent of Africa that have any broadband at all, and the subscriber base in these countries is tiddly.

The Guardian produced a nice map in a PDF here which shows of the current state of play quite nicely. µ