Demand for high bandwidth broadband will drive the number of worldwide households with the high-speed technology to more than 640 million by 2013, according to a report released Tuesday by Parks Associates.

The analyst firm said that the number of broadband households worldwide grew by over 18% in 2008 to exceed 400 million.

The Asia-Pacific market will pace global broadband deployment, the market research firm said, adding that the region will account for more than 49% of the worldwide total market share by 2013. Currently, the Asia-Pacific region accounts for more than 160 million broadband subscribers.

"Bandwidth will continue to be a focus as the operators re-architect their networks to deliver multiple services over the same infrastructure," said Parks Associates VP Kurt Scherf in a statement. "However, in such a competitive field, bandwidth alone is not enough to win subscribers. Blended applications, combining services such as online video and customer support, offer operators an opportunity to increase average revenue per user. In addition, innovative new services will help differentiate service providers, which can then compete on factors beyond pricing or raw bandwidth."

Parks Associates noted that the U.S. broadband market will receive a boost when the Obama Administration releases billions of dollars from its stimulus packages. In particular, rural areas will receive funding for broadband rollouts.

In the United States, broadband deployment continues to grow at a vigorous pace with some 3 million high-speed lines added in the first quarter of 2009, according to a recent report from the Broadband Forum, which noted also that more than 16 million broadband lines were added on a global basis during the same period.

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