The fixed broadband market grew steadily in the first nine months of this year, with the number of subscribers at the end of September amounting to 608,100.
This, according to figures published by the regulator ANRCETI, was 3.9% more than in the same period last year. At the same time, the amount of sales in the first none months of this year was MFL975.9 million (€49.3 million), a 6.5% increase on the same period in 2017. Meanwhile, ARPU, at MDL178.9, was 1.4% higher.
ANRCETI notes that the data, obtained by 82 fixed internet access providers, indicates that sales grew largely due to a rise in high-speed broadband subscribers.
The number connected to fibre (FTTx) grew by 8.1% year-on-year to 378,000, or 62.2% of the total.
At the same time, the number connected to coaxial cable increased by 1.2% and accounted for 6.9% of all subscribers.
The xDSL subscriber number fell by 4.2% and accounted for 30.4% of the total, with 0.5% of subscribers connected to other technologies.
All told, the penetration of fixed internet access services per 100 inhabitants rose by 0.7 percentage points to 17.1%.
Most (53.1%) of fixed broadband subscribers had access speeds ranging from 30-100 Mbps, and 8.9% above 100 Mbps.
Moldtelecom was the market leader in the fixed broadband sector with a share of 63.9%. It was followed by Starnet Solutions (21%) and Sun Communications (3.8%), with other suppliers claiming a combined 11.3%.