Britain On Track To Lead Broadband Nations
Britain will top the league of broadband-enabled G7 nations by the end of the year, according to the latest research from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
The report, entitled The Development of Broadband Access in Rural and Remote Areas, examined the availability of high-speed access across the G7 countries both now and according to industry forecasts.
Britain currently lags far behind other developed countries such as Japan in terms of ultra-high-speed access, but it is anticipated that it will score highly in terms of broadband availability, thanks to rapid take-up in recent months.
BT has stated that availability of its ADSL services will have increased to 95% by the end of the year, and could reach 99% by mid 2005, giving further credence to Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s claims.
The telecoms giant has been pushing its broadband offerings to customers with the creation of several feature-rich packages in an attempt to increase broadband take-up. The company has also given in to recent pressure from Ofcom and has reduced the price it charges rival broadband providers for access to its network infrastructure by 70% (see BT Pushes Broadband With Feature Rich Packages).
The future looks optimistic for UK internet service providers as broadband take-up shows no signs of slowing. Cut-price packages being offered by BT and Telewest, both of which are positioned below the £20 barrier, will further encourage those yet to dip a toe into the waters of high-speed internet access (see BT Launches New Cut-Price Broadband Service).
Last month saw BT announce new trials to increase the reach of its existing broadband network. The company claims that, if the trials are successful, up to 1 million extra users could be reached by existing technology simply by lowering existing restrictions on customer’s line length from a broadband exchange (see BT To Boost Broadband Up-Take With Long Distance Trial).
According to the latest estimates by eMarketer, the UK will have 7.2 million DSL and 3.9 million cable internet households by 2007, easily securing first place in terms of broadband availability among the world’s most developed countries (see Broadband Subscribers Set To Hit 250 Million).
OECD: www.oecd.org
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