UK boasts highest growth rate for broadband penetration in Europe

By Matt Whipp

Posted on 29 May 2003 at 15:39

The UK is showing the fastest rate of take-up for broadband in Europe.

The bad news, however, is that we still stand second from bottom in the European broadband stakes, according to the April 2003 figures from Nielsen//NetRatings. The total for take up is 22 per cent, marginally greater than Italy, at 16 per cent.

Even though we can boast a 235 per cent growth rate over the past 13 months, the countries at the top of the charts, namely France and Spain have 39 per cent and 36 per cent of their populations with high speed access respectively.

While they may only have had a fledgling dial-up market, relative to the established markets of the UK and Germany, they know a good thing when they see it and have gone straight for high-speed access.

'What these figures show is that the countries with the highest broadband take-up are those that are also growing rapidly in terms of online use in general', said European Market Analyst Tom Ewing. 'The countries where the Internet penetration is greatest and has been longer established, like the UK and Germany, have become used to dial-up connections, and broadband is being sold as an upgrade. But in France and Spain users have leapfrogged the technology and first-time Internet surfers are getting
connected via broadband, by-passing the slower dial-up completely.'

And although higher speeds mean users can get their email and complete online tasks more quickly, broadband is simply a more compelling medium, with broadband users spending approximately three times as long online as their dial-up counterparts.

According to Nielson//NetRatings, the pull for broadband users is filesharing, music, film and adult content. 'The Internet is all about access,' said Ewing, 'Initially it was about access to information and people, then it widened to provide access to goods and services, and now with broadband it's able to expand further to provide easy access to entertainment... Next year we might well be approaching the tipping point, after which high-speed access will be the norm not the exception, and the Web will be designed with the high-speed user in mind. That's when things will really get exciting.'