According to Point Topic, a company who specializes in analyzing DSL rollout, the number of global DSL users has tripled… and America is falling behind in deployment.

By the end of 2001 there were 19 million DSL customers worldwide, up from 6.5 million the year before. Although this may sound impressive… a 300% increase, the actual figures aren’t that staggering.

The main issue (for most of the world) that is hindering DSL uptake (and therefore deployment) is price. Europe remains the most expensive with charges (including installation and equipment costs) ranging between $50 and $75 a month. In the US that it is nearer $50 a month whereas in Asia Pacific it's between $20 and $50 a month.

The US has however, fallen down the ranking of countries racing to deploy DSL in a international mine-is-better-than-yours competition, with only a 78% increase in the year, with south-east Asian countries taking the top 3. South Korea leads to world with 10.95 DSL lines per 100 population, the US trailing behind in tenth at 1.59, and the UK with the Zimmer frame fitted out with new go-faster stripes lagging behind at 26th, and only 0.24 lines per 100.

In dear old Blighty (the UK for those uninitiated) however, price is not the only issue. Rollout, or the lack thereof is the largest contributing factor. The UK like most European Union countries is troubled by the fact that the local loops (the wires from the exchanges to your houses is owned by one company) are mostly owned by one company. Being that they charge rather hefty access fees it’s understandable that competition has been somewhat stifled. That is why most EU countries have been trying to combat this by a project called Local Loop Unbundling (LLU). Point-Topic believe however that this initiative has gone as far as it can go, failing in most places (spectacularly in the UK) to have any effect on incumbent telecoms companies, arguing that regulators should instead promote wholesale services.

In the UK this has meant that BT has been reborn, recently announcing large reductions in wholesale service costs (wonder if they previewed the report) and making promises to increase deployment. If only pigs could fly.