Broadband demand waiting to be tapped

By Alun Williams

Posted on 5 Aug 2002 at 15:07

Latest research suggests 12 per cent of Net-enabled homes in the UK now have fast Internet access, with 700,000 households looking to upgrade within the next 12 months...

The latest survey from Continental Research indicates that among the UK's 24 million homes, 10 million are now connected to the Net. Twelve per cent of these enjoy higher-speed Internet connections through some form of ADSL, cable or ISDN.

According to the Summer 2002 Internet Report, a further 700,000 homes are likely to up-grade to a faster connection in the next 12 months. It seems that 'younger households' - those with Internet users aged between 15 to 34 years - expressed the most interest in upgrading to fast Internet access.

Other areas covered by the report include online spending and behaviour, such as the amount of time spent in chat rooms and checking bank account details.

Continental estimates that - on average - £305 has been spent online by Net-connected adults within the last year. Given the total of 17.9 million online adult users, Continental extrapolates total online consumer spending to be £5.5 billion. That's a sizeable online economy. Again, this is just consumer spending and the figures do not take into account money spent online by businesses.

It seems that men account for 70 per cent of online spending, while males from the 35-44 age-group took care of 35 per cent of all online expenditure. Continental identifies young parents, tied to the home with credit cards at the ready, as being the social group most ready to shop on the Internet.

Other popular forms of online behaviour are: downloading music (done by 21 per cent of online users), contacting friends (17 per cent), visiting chat rooms (16 per cent), checking credit card statements and banking transactions (both 15 per cent) and visiting public service sites, such as DVLA and local authorities (15 per cent). However, at the top of the list, believe it or not - is accessing travel route maps (27 per cent), such as streetmap.co.uk...

The figures are extrapolated from 2,080 interviews carried out for the report. Continental Research's reports are available for purchase at £150 excluding VAT.

Compare and contrast with the figures recently produced by the Office for National Statistics covering ASDL.