How Big is European Demand for Fiber-Based Access Services?

European consumers value reasonable prices and high bandwidth access services. The issue is that they seem to value affordable prices more than they do higher speeds.

At least that is the conclusion one might draw from a new survey of 13,764 European online users.

When asked about the most-important considerations when choosing a new Internet service provider, 87 percent indicated "price" was important.

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About 62 percent said the speed of the connection was important. Most other issues, ranging from technical support, installation fees and type of connection were cited by 31 percent to 35 percent of respondents.conducted by Forrester Research.


Telco fiber services might lag the headline speeds offered by cable. Ian Fogg, Forrester Research analyst, suggests that where cable might offer 100 Mbps, telcos might offer 40 Mbps to 60 Mbps.

The issue is whether the "speed gap" will matter much. One would think it would. But in other markets where very-fast services are available, at higher prices, consumers do not seem to be buying them in large numbers. "Fast enough at a lower price" seems to be the winning formula.