More than 100 million people use digital subscriber line service worldwide, according to freshly released data from the DSL Forum. Further, the organization said that growth rates in 2004 indicate that people are signing up for DSL at a rate of one every second.

In the U.S., DSL providers added a total of 4.3 million new DSL subscribers last year, for a total of 13.7 mil. Canada counts 2.65 mil. DSL subscribers.

The breakdown:

U.S.A.: 9.4 mil. (YE ’03 total); 13.7 mil. (YE ’04 total)

Canada: 2.2 mil.; 2.6 mil.

Latin America: 1.7 mil.; 3.4 mil.

Fastest growing pockets of the world: Turkey, with 725 percent growth (to almost 500k); the Czech Republic, which grew by 589 percent, and Ireland, which grew by 351 percent.

The DSL Forum is aiming for 500 mil. DSL customers by 2010.