• by Paul Gough , December 17, 2003

DSL may be locked in a death struggle against broadband cable in the United States, but a study released Tuesday finds that DSL gained 25 million subscribers worldwide in the past 12 months.

That's the word from the DSL Forum, which sponsored a study by Point Topic. It said that more than 62 million homes and businesses will have DSL by the end of the year.

The top country for DSL? Japan, with 9.22 million subscribers, followed by the United States at 8.24 million and China at 7.81 million. In Europe, five countries have more than a million DSL subscribers but the highest is Germany, with 4.25 million. China is the fastest-growing place for DSL, with 2.21 million subscribers added in the third quarter. Japan and the U.S. trailed China by more than half.

The DSL Forum is made up of 200 DSL providers, manufacturers and others who want to see DSL be the leading Internet connection.

--Paul J. Gough