Boston, MA - July 26, 2005 - Broadband adoption in Germany trails badly behind the rest of Europe according to "Europe Surges Ahead on Broadband," the latest research from global research and consulting company Strategy Analytics. From the company's Broadband Media & Communications service this report reveals that Germany has the lowest level of broadband ownership out of 14 European countries. Only 24 percent of German homes will have broadband by the end of 2005, compared to 56 percent in the Netherlands, Europe's leading broadband market.

"Germany's fragmented and highly-regulated cable industry is a key factor in the constrained growth of broadband," said Martin Olausson, Senior Analyst at Strategy Analytics. "With limited competition in Germany, Deutsche Telekom (DTAG) has no real incentive to implement an aggressive growth strategy for broadband."

This report also notes that after the Asia-Pacific market, Europe has now overtaken North America as the second largest broadband market in the world. It also predicts that total broadband household penetration in Western Europe will reach 63 percent by 2010, by which time 93 percent of online households will use broadband to access the Internet.

"What we are witnessing now is the death of dial-up Internet in Western Europe," said Olausson. "Over the next five years the leading markets in Europe, such as Benelux and the Nordic, will phase out dial-up Internet altogether."