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After a painfully slow start in preceding years, growth in UK broadband has picked up speed during the past year and the UK is now starting to catch up with other G7 countries in its goal to truly justify the moniker Broadband Britain. ( If you are wondering who the G7 countries are, they consist of: Britain, Germany, France, Italy, United States, Canada and Japan.)
Latest UK broadband statistics from Oftel (covering the end of May 2003 unless otherwise noted)
Total Usage
Total broadband subscribers: Over 2.05 million
UK households with broadband: 8%
UK Internet households using Broadband: 17%
UK households with Internet service (narrowband and broadband): 45%
Cable Modem
End-users of cable modem services: Over 1 million consisting of: NTL 721,500 and Telewest 310,000 (end April 2003)
Availability of cable modem services: 45% of UK homes and businesses
DSL
End users of ADSL services: Over 1,000,000 consisting of: BT Wholesale Over 1,000,000 (mid-June) and Kingston Telecomm. 10,000
BT exchanges DSL enabled: 1,322
Availability of ADSL services: 69% of UK homes and businesses
(Note: BT advises that due to technical limitations 6% of the people in each ADSL-enabled exchange cannot get the service)
Number of ISPs offering ADSL: 100+
Satellite
End users of satellite broadband services: Over 5,000
Availability of satellite broadband services: Over 99% of UK homes and businesses
Broadband Fixed Wireless Access (BFWA)
End users of BFWA: 2,500
Availability of BFWA Services: Approximately 12% of UK homes and businesses, mainly in urban areas where line of sight is needed from the base station to the customer's premises.
Local Loop Unbundling (LLU)
End users of LLU broadband services which include SDSL, ADSL and leased lines: 4,600
Note: Oftel shows LLU as a separate category of broadband access, but it would be more appropriate if these were broken down by type and the SDSL and ADSL LLU statistics shown under DSL.
Oftel collects limited statistics on a voluntary submission basis covering broadband users of satellite, fixed wireless and selected other "Last Mile" technologies which account for less than 5% of total UK broadband connections. These are therefore subject to under-reporting. It should also be noted that broadband statistics are collected for always-on Internet services which are as slow as 128 Kbps, which is below Oftel’s minimum standard of 256 Kbps. This is in keeping with the way broadband statistics are gathered in other G7 countries. It is estimated that a little more than one third of cable modem users subscribe to services with data transfer speeds of less than 256 Kbps.
To download Oftel's latest Internet and Broadband Brief which is published every two months or to search for other broadband publications, see
the Broadband Publications section of Oftel’s website.For a general overview of broadband in the UK including who the major broadband service providers are as well as the reasons for broadband’s initial slow deployment, see this
summary from Point-Topic.
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