Almost Of Half Of UK Households Are Now Online

Oftel has described the UK’s dial-up internet access market as ‘competitive’ and offering a wide range of unmetered and metered services available at low prices. Nevertheless, a proposal unveiled by the telecommunications watchdog just yesterday looks set to change the way that BT charges other access operators for unmetered services, which in turn could help drive consumer prices down even further (see Oftel Proposals May Boost Unmetered Internet Access Market).

Oftel’s review looked only at the narrowband, dial-up Net access market, rather than the uptake of broadband access options such as DSL, cable modem and so on, although the penetration of cable versus BT homes is shown here:

UK homes with internet access, October 2001
	All Internet homes	Single line Internet homes	Multi-line Internet homes
	(Base: 750)	(Base: 523)	(Base: 225)
BT	74%	80%	60%
Cable	19%	13%	32%
Other	5%	7%	1%
DonÂ’t know	2%	–	6%
Source: Oftel, January 2002

From dial-up to broadband Of the 11 million UK homes that are now connected to the internet, four million use unmetered access services. As most consumers still use dial-up, narrowband access, it is important to maintain a ‘thriving and competitive’ market, says Oftel. Dial-up Net access often acts as a stepping stone for users who then move on to the faster broadband services.

The split the payment packages in the UK is shown in the chart below.