The drive towards Broadband Britain is in danger of stalling as consumers become increasingly confused and angry over the rising tide of spam, viruses and pop-up advertising.
A new year-long study from
The Work Foundation and the
Broadband Stakeholder Group suggests that regular internet users are being put off adopting broadband because the time they spend online is being ruined by these persistent offenders.
The report urges the industry to take immediate action to improve the situation, which has left Britain trailing well behind other European countries in terms of take-up. The UK was among the last of the major developed countries to introduce a DSL service and there are already signs that the recent rise in cable subscriptions has stalled.
Commenting on the problem, James Crabtree, co-author of the report, said: “Broadband is vital for BritainÂ’s future, but the industry must put itself in its customers shoes and see how this tide of rubbish is beginning to ruin the experience of going online.”
He added: “Ordinary people are promised that broadband makes the internet better, in fact it sometimes leads to a disaster on the desktop which makes people consider stopping using the net altogether.”
Poor marketing was found to be partially to blame for the problem and advertisers are being advised to rethink their approach to selling high-speed products. The study claims that agencies should focus on communicating the fact the broadband is about more than just increased speed and more content.
The research comes just days after the latest figures from Oftel revealed that there are 12.5 million online households in the UK, with 750,000 new connections generated in the last three months.
The communications regulator claims that the popularity of high speed broadband technology has been a key driver in internet uptake, with one million customers likely to upgrade to broadband services over the next twelve months (see Half Of UK Homes Are Now Online).
