The number of U.S. high-speed internet connections surged in 2005, according to a Federal Communications Commission report (pdf) released Wednesday.

High-speed internet lines increased 33 percent (or 12.3 million lines) last year to 50.2 million lines, the FCC reported (pdf), with more users signing up for digital subscriber line (DSL) service from phone companies than cable modem service from cable providers, writes Reuters. In 2005, 5.7 million DSL lines were added, versus 4.2 million for cable; cable's market share fell 3.5 percentage points to 57.5 percent, and DSL's increased 3.3 percentage points to reach 40.5.

DSL is typically less expensive than cable internet service but has slower download speeds. Of the 50.2 million total high-speed lines reported as of December 31, 2005, 42.9 million served primarily residential end users.

As a nationwide average, high-speed DSL connections were available to 78 percent of the households to which incumbent local exchange carriers (LECs) could provide local telephone service as of December 31, 2005; high-speed cable modem service was available to 93 percent of the households to which cable system operators could provide cable TV service.

Providers, which list the ZIP codes in which they have at least one high-speed connection in service to an end user, reported 99 percent of ZIP codes as having at least one end user. By that measure, the most widely reported technologies were satellite (with at least some presence reported in 88 percent of ZIP codes), DSL (in 82 percent), and cable modem (in 57 percent). ADSL and/or cable modem connections were reported to be present in 87 percent of ZIP codes.