China Shows Broadband is a Product, Like Any Other, and can Mature

For more than a hundred years, fixed network voice seemed to be a product that defied the "product life cycle." Demand only seemed to grow.


As it turns out, fixed network voice now is behaving as a normal product. Demand in some markets is declining, while substitute products arguably are taking share.


The question therefore is whether fixed network broadband access also will turn out to be a product, with a life cycle. In China, the answer already might be "yes."


Internet users reached 530 million over the past six months, but its broadband subscriber base actually shrank as mobile became the most popular way for users to get online for the first time, the study suggests.


Of those users, some 380 million were fixed broadband users, down from 396 million in December 2011, and 388 million were mobile internet users, up from 356 million, according to the report by the Chinese government. :