During the last decade, the broadband market has been growing at an exponential rate, beginning with a trickle of users, and exploding to more than 300 million today. This is just the beginning, though, as the vast majority of this growth has been based on providing consumers with wired connections through twisted copper pairs, and in some markets coaxial cable.
In high-growth economies, broadband is still at a relatively early stage. As a result, the potential exists for service providers in these economies to provide not only links to new forms of information, entertainment and communications, but also to act as catalysts for the rapid expansion of the overall marketplace by bringing producers and consumers into the developing global economy.
To reach this potential, new business models that rely on partnerships between service providers and government agencies must be developed. Additionally, the new models must accept the fact that broadband will be provided through a variety of wired and wireless access technologies.