The number of Gigabit per second broadband connections will increase tenfold by the end of the year, according to business advisors Deloitte.
The technology, media and telecommunications (TMT) practice at Deloitte has published the 16th edition of its Global Media Trends.
It anticipates that rising demand will be fuelled by increasing availability, which in the last three-quarters of 2015 has seen the number of Gbps tariffs from just over 80 to 150.
However, the 10 million subscribers already on such a package is expected to represent a small proportion of the 250 million customers hooked up to networks capable of delivering Gigabit speeds by the end of 2016.
Deloitte estimates about 600 million subscribers will be on Gigabit networks by 2020. Its anticipating a flurry of announcement about such launches to take place this year.
Delivery is not a particularly expensive business with one operator estimating that an upgrade to the increased speeds of DOCSIS 3.1 would cost just $22 per subscriber.
Turning its attention to cord cutting, Deloitte anticipates some 1% of US pay-TV customers will cut the cord in 2016, 1.5% in 2017 and 2% in 2018, but by 2020 there will still be 90 million homes paying a regular TV subscription, down from the 100.9 million high watermark of 2011, but still higher than the 72 million of 1997.
Deloitte says that for years 7% of US subscribers said they would leave their service; a statement rarely matched by action.
