Analyst firm Point Topic has revised upwards its previous estimates about the global broadband growth, in light of strong demand from developing countries.

The company had earlier predicted that the recession could have a major impact on the broadband industry, and had thus estimated that the worldwide fixed line broadband connections would reach 493 million by the end of 2009, and 683 million by the end of 2014. After realizing that the recession was not having as big an impact as had been previously thought, and that broadband demand from developing countries was still quite strong, the company has decided to revise the estimates upwards to 496 million and 695 million respectively.

The analysts have however clarified that the upwards revision does not mean that the recession is not having an impact on the broadband industry. Instead, it indicates that the impact is not uniform, and while some regions are still doing well, there are many other regions that are seeing a slump in demand.

Explaining this further, Tim Johnson, chief analyst at Point Topic, said that there are several developed countries like the UK and Spain, where broadband growth has taken a major hit due to the economic downturn. There is another group of countries where although the demand has gone down, it is primarily because the market has almost saturated. Such countries include Sweden, Norway, Finland and Taiwan.

However, compensating for this lower growth, are the developing countries, where demand has been strong in the face of recession, and there is no reason to believe that this trend would be broken any time soon. This means that the global demand is still quite strong, and the projections had to be revised accordingly.