Although broadband usage has doubled this year, the UK is struggling to keep pace with other European countries, according to a new report from NetValue.
Figures show that 6.1% of UK households now connect to the Internet via broadband, up from 2.6% in December 2001. However this compares unfavourably with Denmark and Germany where penetration levels have reached 24.5% and 15.4% respectively.
There is also evidence to show that broadband users in Europe spend longer online than dial-up users. According to the study, UK broadband users connect to the internet for an average of 16.7 hours per month, as against 8.4 hours for narrowband users. There is still ground to make up on France where broadband users are online for an average of 25.7 hours per month.
In a separate report, the German telecom consultancy, Infocom has predicted that global internet access service revenues will rise from $37 billion in 2001 to $77 billion in 2006.
Broadband is expected to be the driving force behind this twofold increase. Infocom suggests that narrowband access revenues will begin to level out this year and in four years time, only 45% of total revenues will derive from dial-up usage. The report predicts that xDSL is set to become the leading worldwide broadband service with over 100 million connections established by 2006.
