UK Consumers Not Buying "Super-Fast" Broadband

There are two distinct, and different "problems" nations and policymakers face when promoting use of very-fast broadband access. First, the physical capabilities must be put into place.

But an equally-important issue is consumer demand for such services, especially when high-speed services already are widely available.

In the United Kingdom, for example, the government is pushing new fiber-to-cabinet networks supporting speeds roughly defined as access at 24 Mbps or so.  U.K. Super-Fast Broadband

However, just four percent of U.K. households subscribed to superfast services in June 2011, compared with 40 per cent in Japan and 10 per cent in the United States, although higher than in Germany (three percent), Italy (1.5 percent) and Spain (2.2 percent). Lagging adoption

To be fair, the networks still are under construction, so not every potential consumer is able to buy such services.


But 25Mbps or faster services already are available to the 48 percent of UK households passed by Virgin Media's cable service and about 20 percent of premises passed by BT's fiber to the cabinet superfast services.

Overall availability of high-speed fixed-line broadband networks in the United Kingdom does compare favorably to other European countries, though, so mere ability to buy is not the issue. By June 2011, 59 per cent of households had access to Virgin Media or BT’s superfast services. Ofcom: UK consumers not buying super-fast broadband

U.K. Will Not Reach 30 Mbps Broadband Access Goal by 2020

Rural fiber infrastructure cost

BT Group Director of Strategy and Policy Sean Williams considers the EU target of 30 Mbps to all citizens by 2020 as "not achievable for any country." 


That doesn't mean complete or even substantial failure. In fact, one might argue the opposite. 


BT does seem to believe it will be possible to provide 30 Mbps access to about 90 percent of the U.K. population. 


For the final 10 percent of homes or locations, 2 Mbps might be more reasonable, for all sorts of good reasons related directly to the cost of building communications infrastructure in rural and isolated areas. Some might argue that the cost curve looks very much like the curve that describes the cost of providing health care to people, where most of the cost is incurred late in life. 


Likewise, the cost of building facilities to the last couple of percentage points of locations is very high. That's one reason satellite broadband providers have a business. The core market is about two percent of U.S. households, for example. 


The high cost of reaching the last 10 percent of locations in either the U.K. or U.S. markets always will be a problem, at least when using fixed networks, whether the services are narrowband or broadband . EC broadband target unreachable 


So some might argue that 90-percent coverage of the United Kingdom with 30 Mbps service by 2020 is not in any way "a failure." It is a success. But the problem with all infrastructure goals is that it always is a stretch to reach the last 10 percent of potential customers with networks of any kind.

Social Networks More Popular than Search Engines in UK

Social networks were visited more often than search engines by users in the United Kingdom, says hitwise.

About 55 percent of social network and forum traffic goes to Facebook, hitwise says. YouTube got 16 percent of traffic. Twitter leapt over Bebo and MySpace in May to land a distant third, with only two percent of UK social traffic.

Social networks more popular than search engines in UK, says Hitwise | VentureBeat

EU Approves UK Broadband Deregulation

The European Union Telecoms Commission has approved an Ofcom proposal to deregulate the U.K. broadband market UK broadband market where there are four or more actual or potential providers serving areas with more than 10,000 homes and businesses.

In practice, that means deregulation for areas covering around 65 percent of all homes and businesses.

UK Leads in Digital TV

The U.K. is well ahead of most other European countries in its use of digital media, by some measures. By the start of 2007, more than 76 percent of U.K. TV households were receiving digital TV services, a rate higher than other Western European countries, Japan or the United States, for example.

According to Ofcom, U.K. adults also spend more time on social networking sites than other Europeans. Two in five U.K. adults regularly log on to these sites, clocking up an average of 23 visits and 5.3 hours each month.

In the U.K. market, 33 percent of users send picture messages via their mobiles and 16 percent use them to connect to the Internet. About 10 percent of U.K. adults use mobiles for e-mail.

Ofcom also believes that online advertising in the United Kingdom accounted for 14 percent of total advertising revenues in 2006, passing magazine advertising for the first time and registering more than total spending on outdoor, cinema and radio advertising combined.

Advertisers in the U.K. market also spend more money per consumer on Internet advertising than any other country, at £33. According to Ofcom, this is twice as much as France, Germany and Italy combined.

Online advertising revenues generated in the U.K. market in 2006 also beat the combined totals of Germany, France and Italy at £231 per head.