The number of broadband subscribers around the world has reached 400 million, according to a new report prepared for the Broadband Forum by industry analysts, Point Topic. In 1998 there were only 57,200 broadband subscribers, so it's taken some massive growth to get to this point: a 600,000% increase in the number of subscribers, in fact, with 300 percent just in the last 5 years.
That growth isn't necessarily essential to the spread of virtual worlds--especially for the Flash-based and 2D or 2.5D simpler world that are particularly popular right now. It is, though, significant for those worlds aiming for more graphical power, user-generated content, and rich media. With the growth of broadband, those services may soon become more important than the lower accessibility requirements of today. Just for a point of interesting comparison, Strategy Analytics estimated that, as of June, there were about 137 million people who had registered for virtual worlds. [PDF of report]
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