2 Chinese ISPs Serve 20% of World Broadband Users

suraj.sun writes with this excerpt from Ars Technica: "If you need a reminder of just how big China is—and just how important the Internet has become there—consider this stat: between them, two Chinese ISPs serve 20 percent of all broadband subscribers in the entire world and both companies continue to grow, even as growth slows significantly in more developed markets. Every other ISP trails dramatically. Japan's NTT comes in third with 17 million subscribers, and all US providers are smaller still. 'The gap between the top two operators and the world's remaining broadband service providers will continue to grow rapidly,' said TeleGeography Research Director Tania Harvey. 'Aside from the two Chinese companies, all of the top ten broadband ISPs operate in mature markets, with high levels of broadband penetration and rapidly slowing subscriber growth.'"

Comments

And they only get 20% of the internet?

[hawkeyeMI]

Or something like that.

Developing vs. Developed

[DigiShaman]

How is this really news?

At all levels, China's GDP continues to grow while western nations stagnate or creep forward. China is developing while the west has already developed it products and service offerings. Eventually, they will reach a saturation point like the west and slow down. But get ready to accept them as the 1# economic super power when that happens. Simply put, they have far more human resources to tap into. The only thing holding them back right now is local politics.

Monopolies Are Bigger Than Cartels

[Doc Ruby]

I don't know what the point of this story is. China's a mafia economy, Japan's is state capitalism, America's is based on cartels that compete within with each other, but primarily defend their mutual cartel from any newcomer. None of that is good.

A healthy Internet is one that's highly distributed, decentralized. The more ISPs per person, the healthier and more stable the Internet. The more Chinese it is, the worse.