Fibre dominates global broadband picture as satellite slips

New figures just published by Point Topic show that there were 17.6 million net fixed broadband additions globally in Q1, with growth led by the usual suspects: fibre and to a lesser extent wireless. Perhaps surprisingly, the number of satellite broadband subscribers fell during the quarter, but there was a big reason for that and the numbers will likely change significantly in future reports.

Those Q1 net adds equate to a growth rate of 1.22%, which is an improvement on less than 1% growth in the previous quarter, the lowest since 2019; aside from Q4, global growth has come in at between 1.2% and 1.9% for the past nine quarters.

The recovery was driven by East Asia and specifically the uptick in China, which is responsible for much of the region's 50.2% global market share.

China made headlines this week when launched its latest batch of LEO satellites into space. Its G60 Starlink project, a rival to Starlink's SpaceX, successfully launched 18 satellites as part of a broader plan to put north of 10,000 satellites into orbit; estimated numbers vary at around the 12,000 and 14,000 mark, with a few hundred set to be in space by the end of next year.

The China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) announced that the successful G60 Starlink – now more commonly known as Thousand Sails, presumably for obvious reasons – launch took place on Tuesday, but admittedly we are relying on Google translate for that information. There are a few conflicting reports out there.

Either way, it's hard to argue that satellite broadband services are in the ascendancy, no pun intended, with LEO satellites being fired into space at a rate of knots.

But Point Topic's data seems to suggest that uptake is simply not there yet. Satellite claims a tiny global market share at 0.21%, static compared with the previous quarter. And the number of connections actually dropped by 1% in Q1 (see chart below).

However, the analyst firm's numbers do not yet include figures from Elon Musk's Starlink. It intends to add those connections into its report for Q2, it said, without proffering an opinion as to what that might do to the overall figures. We can probably guess that we will see an upturn in satellite broadband connections, but that the technology is far from mature enough to move the needle on overall subscriptions though.

Indeed, home broadband services delivered by fixed wireless access (FWA) are becoming much more popular in certain global markets; the US springs to mind, as well as Canada and Italy.

Overall, wireless broadband – that's mainly FWA /5G and LTE fixed, Point Topic said – reported 8.1% growth in connections worldwide in Q1, with two of the aforementioned markets, the US and Italy, leading the charge, and with Algeria also getting a mention as a market showing a healthy growth rate.

"We expect this trend to persist due to demand for connectivity in remote and underserved areas where wired broadband infrastructure is not economically or logistically feasible, and due to some consumers cord-cutting their broadband access services," Point Topic said.

While wireless broadband might be holding its own in terms of percentage growth rates, it too represents a drop in the ocean compared with fibre, and to a diminishing extent cable and copper, claiming a share of 1.89% of those close to one and a half billion global broadband subscribers. Its share is growing – a bit – but it is very much a minnow.

Fibre is where it is at; it now accounts for more than 70% of total subscriptions, driven by growth in developing markets. Indeed, six of the 10 fastest growing markets were developing economies, Point Topic's data shows.

While telcos are pushing their 5G-based FWA offerings hard in some countries, and the likes of Musk, the Chinese government and others are flinging satellites into space, overtaking fibre would be a tall order.