The Dutch broadband industry grew by about 2% during the first quarter of 2008 and is expected to gain nearly 6 Million broadband connections by 2009.
Telecompaper, the online news portal, revealed that the broadband market of the Netherlands increased by about 2% in the first quarter of 2008 as compared to growth rates of 1.7% and 1.6% recorded in the last two quarters of 2007. Also, the market is anticipated to post over 6 Million broadband connections by 2009, as reported by TeleFeography.
Broadband providers in the country added 1,07,000 new connections during Q1 2008. With around 16.4 Million customers and about 77.1% households connected with broadband, the Netherlands has the highest broadband penetration rate worldwide. Also, during Q1 2008, Ziggo, the topmost broadband Internet Service Provider (ISP), added nearly 30,000 connections, while Het Net, the second largest ISP, added about 16,000 new customers, taking the total count to 6,59,000 during the period.
The primary reason for the impressive growth in the Dutch broadband market was the introduction of two new broadband brands in the first quarter of 2008, which did aggressive marketing and encouraged other companies to follow the same strategy. Also, the flourishing economy with concentrated demography of the Netherlands provides a golden opportunity to investors for investing in advanced broadband networks, thus boosting the industry.
Moreover, the strategic geographic location of the Netherlands on the edge of mainland Europe makes it the central point for submarine cables from North America, and thus leads to the establishment of strong telecom infrastructure with AMS-IX (the Amsterdam Internet Exchange) as one of the prime Internet exchanges in Europe.
Furthermore, various policy actions, initiatives and projects taken by the Netherlands government have been identified as major growth drivers for the broadband industry. Besides, several initiatives by the Dutch government, such as the Kenniswijk project in which it provided funds for testing new products and services in the trial environment in the Eindhoven region, helped broadband market to grow.
According to a Research Analyst at RNCOS, “The geographical position of the Netherlands facilitated to build a strong broadband infrastructure in the country to provide broadband access to majority of people. Thus, the ISPs should maintain the quality of service and use new technologies to infuse growth into the broadband industry.”
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