Coupled with impressive growth in its broadband subscriber base, the Asia/Pacific region is standing at the forefront of the fiber to the home/node/business (FTTx) evolution, according to the high-tech market research firm In-Stat, Scottsdale, Ariz. Carriers such as Korea Telecom and NTT have committed to investing heavily to change copper infrastructures to fiber by 2010.

“The next-generation broadband access services strategy, as proven in markets like Japan, South Korea and Hong Kong, is to focus on market proliferation of value-added broadband services, driven by the launch of compelling broadband content and innovative broadband pricing plans,” said Bryan Wang, In-Stat analyst.

Recent research by In-Stat found the following:

• The total Asia/Pacific broadband access services market will exceed 225 million subscribers by 2011. 
• In 2006, FTTx represented 9.5 percent of the total Asia/Pacific subscriber base. 
• Japan and South Korea are the two markets that will see FTTx replacing existing xDSL subscriber connections by 2011. EC