South Korea Leads the World in Fiber Adoption

DSL and cable internet connections still make up 56.1 percent of fixed broadband subscriptions across OECD countries but high-speed fiber is continuing to make steady progress. The OECD has reported that the share of fiber connections had grown to 37.7 percent of all broadband connections at the end of 2022 and that the number of these connections was up 12.4 percentage points in one year. Belgium - a laggard when it comes to fiber - saw the biggest increase at almost 80 percent more fiber subscriptions since the end of 2021. Yet, the fiber penetration in the country remains at just 5 percent of all broadband lines. Israel and Costa Rica also increased the number of fiber connections by more than 50 percent each.

There are considerable differences in the share of fiber broadband connections between countries. South Korea had the highest penetration rate with 88 percent in Dec 2022, just ahead of Japan's 84.8 percent. Even though the United States has a lot of work to do in order to catch up with a share of 20.4 percent of fiber connections, it's still ahead of Italy (18.7 percent), Germany (9.2 percent) and Belgium (5 percent).