In this time of financial turmoil, some industries are surviving, even thriving. There's fast food, with more people than ever going through the Golden Arches and various competitors looking to fill themselves up, cheaply. The sex trade, anecdotally we hear, is doing just fine. And then there's the broadband industry.
Despite the downturn, the appetite for broadband shows no signs of a slowdown. China, for example, added another 2.5 million subscribers in the first quarter and in late 2008 took the crown as the leading broadband country in the world from the US. And with penetration still low, there is still massive room for growth.
From a low base, Vietnam, the Philippines and Indonesia have become star performers, all of them registering double-digit growth in the last quarter of 2008. Against global average growth of 15%, Indonesian subscriptions were up 66%. These markets are going through growing pains - from speed and quality issues to regulation and geographical problems - but the only way is up.
In terms of supply and demand, it's a happy combination. Consumers and businesses want more bandwidth and higher speeds, not just for watching sport or music clips but marketing and delivering product, from eBay to high volume supply-chain management. When they think about surviving the recession, many organizations think about efficiency and when they do, broadband is often top of mind when they think about how they can do things better.
Fiber to the home or office and mobile broadband are the big growth technologies, and hint at what the future will be. New technologies and infrastructure are adding to the momentum through new channels, devices and applications, particularly mobile. If we thought the uptake in mobile phone use was a major phenomena, it's about to eclipsed by the upcoming revolution in broadband.
'Mobile broadband services are finally beginning to grow as they become more accessible by the mobile phone,' says Australian analyst Paul Budde.
'Competition and a saturated mobile voice market also mean operators are forced to offer competitive capped data packages. Such affordability and certainty - with no bill shock - is the key reason for growth and this development is complemented and supported by new technologies such as HSPA which are bringing more efficiency to the network.'