Germany lags UK in broadband stakes

 

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By Alun Williams

Posted on 29 Oct 2004 at 15:58

The UK has overtaken Germany in terms of the spread of broadband across the population, and digital TV channels are beginning to catch on to the extent that they overtake the viewing share for BBC1.

These are among the findings of Ofcom's official October 2004 Quarterly Update.

The communications regulator reports that the UK now has 7.5 connections per hundred of the population, which compares with 6.1 in Spain, 6.3 in Italy, 6.4 in Portugal and 6.7 in Germany. This is not the full European story, however: the figures stand at 8.3 in France, 12.1 in Sweden, 15.8 in the Netherlands and 15.6 in Denmark.

Other telecom stats quoted included the number of UK broadband subscribers passing the five million mark, reaching 5.3 million by the end of September 2004. Of these, it was reported that the number of DSL subscribers had reached a landmark: BT announcing 3 million DSL connections, either to its own retail service or those of other service providers.

Meanwhile, mobile and data revenues (£2.9bn for April to June) continued to exceed revenues for fixed calls and access (£2.8bn for the second quarter). Furthermore, the report notes, business users are spending £1bn on fixed data services and £100m on mobile data services every quarter.

In terms of digital TV, Ofcom reports that digital-only channels combined to account for a 26 per cent share of viewing, which compares with the 24.9 per cent recorded for BBC1 in the three months of April to June.

The price of digital radios has continued to fall, the report also notes: the cheapest now costs less than £50.

You can find the full October 2004 Quarterly Update - a supplement to Ofcom's annual Communications Market - on the Ofcom website.