UK Lags Behind Rest Of Europe In Broadband Awareness And Adoption.

2,500 respondents were surveyed across, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK, revealing changing dynamics in the home broadband market and unearthing varying degrees of consumer awareness, take-up and demand amongst different countries.

In countries such as Italy, Spain and France, operators have spurred adoption by bundling broadband with other services such as voice and internet protocol television (IPTV), while the UK lags behind the rest of the continent in awareness, uptake and desire for a number of broadband applications.

France was shown to have the highest awareness of VoIP (93%) and the strongest uptake, with 52% of those aware of VoIP already using it, compared to 17% in the UK. The UK also had the lowest awareness of VoIP, at 77%, while a majority (65%) are unwilling to give up their landline for a comparable broadband voice solution. In comparison, 77% of Italians were very open to not having a landline as long as they had broadband.

Recent estimates from TeleGeography forecast that VoIP enabled lines will reach over 19 million in the US by 2010 (see VoIP Lines To Hit 19 Million By 2010).

The survey suggests that people are ready for fixed mobile convergence, as the idea appealed to the majority of respondents. It ranked highest in Spain with 91%, and was least popular in the UK at 65%. Italy and Spain download more music videos than any of the countries surveyed, while Spain downloads more music than any other country involved.

Although many respondents were not sure about VoIP, a strong majority of respondents said that they would prefer to watch TV and movies via the internet rather than being restricted by set broadcast schedules, with Spain the highest with 90% and Italy a close second with 89%. Germany is least willing to pay a premium for on-demand services, with only 31% willing to pay extra for a high quality service to download music, TV programmes and movies. Similarly, only 34% of those surveyed in the UK were interested in IPTV.

Forecasts recently released by Research and Markets said that the number of global IPTV subscribers will grow from 4.3 million in 2005 to 36.8 million in 2009, with Europe leading the market thanks to the residential broadband boom (see Europe Leading IPTV Boom).

Motorola says the research indicates that the availability and desire to take advantage of the latest broadband applications is transforming the way people purchase their broadband. Where in the past price was the key factor, the survey identifies that speed is now the top concern with around 58% citing this as their reason for subscribing to their selected broadband service. Quality was identified as the second most important factor (17%), followed by the freedom broadband brings to easily access content such as movies and games (14%). Price was only a top concern for approximately 9% of respondents.

With regards to multi-play, the research found that there is generally strong interest across Europe to deal with a single service provider for voice, internet and TV. The survey showed that the UK is least interested, with the idea appealing to 72% of respondents, compared to Spain with 94%. Of those respondents that want a single provider, a majority of countries stated that the price of a bundled package would be the deciding factor. Motorola says that consumers across Europe seem to have bought into the idea of the ‘Connected Home’, with the majority believing that the computer will become the centre of home entertainment.