10 Apr 2012Denmark Broadband Overview

The Danish telecommunications market was fully liberalised in 1996. The Danish incumbent and largest telecommunications provider at that time was Tele Danmark. In October 1997, Tele Danmark entered into a partnership with US-based telco Ameritech. Under the terms of the partnership Ameritech acquired 42 per cent of Tele Danmark. In January 1998, Tele Danmark acquired the rest of its state owned shares and became fully privatised. Ameritech merged with US-based telco SBC and in 2000 Tele Danmark changed its name to TDC. As of September 2010, TDC’s largest shareholder is Angel Lux Common (ALC) with an 87.9 stake. TDC was appointed universal service provider from 1 January 2009.

At the end of 2010, there were 1.79 million fixed lines in Denmark, 13 per cent fewer than in 2009. The developments in PSTN and IP-telephony were different. While the number of IP-telephony subscriptions has grown from 484,000 to 833,000, the number of PSTN subscriptions has fallen by nearly 30 per cent from 1.8 million in H2 2008 to 1.3 million in H2 2010. The number of ISDN subscriptions fell by 33 per cent from 217,000 to 146,000 in the same period. The share of IP-telephony as a proportion of all fixed telephony has grown from 19 per cent in H2 2008 to 37 per cent in H2 2010.

As of January 2009, only 21,000 households and companies in Denmark (1 per cent) were outside the reach of ADSL, WiMAX or fibre-optic broadband coverage. Due to a lack of financial incentive, it is likely that broadband services for this 1 per cent will be provided by mobile broadband operators. The number of broadband connections continues to rise and the country boasts rapid growth in the number of fibre connections with speeds of up to 100 Mbps. In 2010, fibre broadband market grew by 24 per cent to about 171,000 subscribers. Next generation mobile broadband is becoming a reality too, with all four major mobile operators now holding LTE licences and one of them having launched services.

Another strong trend is the increasing popularity of IPTV and bundled services. During 2010 the number of triple play subscriptions has grown by 29 per cent from 160,000 to 206,000. During the same period the number of subscribers to other bundled services has grown by 22 per cent from 401,000 to 495,000.