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The research company said that home users in Ireland will make up the most valuable sector of the market at USD57 million by 2006 while the business market will be worth only USD32 million in that same period of time.
Jill Finger, research manager for IDC's European Telecoms Service told ElectricNews.Net that broadband usage in Ireland would grow steadily over the next five years and home user prices would fall in that time period.
The report from IDC said that broadband take-up increased rapidly in most European countries over 2001, driven mainly by incumbent operator deployments and aggressive marketing rather than competition by alternative competitors.
At the end of 2001 broadband access was available to at least 50 percent of European homes and businesses, but only four percent of homes and eight percent of business sites are paying for it. The overall European market was forecast to grow from USD2 billion in 2001 to USD24 billion in 2006.
"Broadband usage and awareness are definitely on the rise in Europe. However, the local loop unbundling process is simply too complex and politically problematic to create a competitive broadband access market within a reasonable time frame," said Finger. "In this tough economic climate for the telecoms sector, the solution to the competitive access conundrum lies elsewhere, in options such as fair wholesale network access," she said.
The IDC report, "European Broadband Access Services, Forecast and Analysis 2001-2006," said DSL will continue to be the primary method of access for the majority of homes and businesses in most countries for the duration of the forecast period. Alternative access infrastructures, are either not sufficiently deployed, or are too expensive to pose a serious challenge to DSL and cable in the short term.
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