More Than 12 Million UK Households Now Online

Half of UK homes now have access to the internet and the rate of new connections is increasing, according to the latest figures from Oftel. There are now 12.5 million online households in the UK, with 750,000 new connections in the last three months.

The popularity of high speed broadband technology has been a key driver in internet uptake. Oftel predicts that one million customers are likely to upgrade to broadband services over the next twelve months – a stronger growth rate than both France and Germany.

Despite this current strong growth it has taken almost two years for internet penetration to rise from 45% to 50% of all homes. In January 2002 Oftel announced that there were 11 million online households, representing 45% of all homes.

This means that on average, there have been fewer than 80,000 new connections per month between January 2002 and August this year, when the current survey was conducted. Given that there were 750,000 new connections in the last three months, much of the uptake has been recent. In May 2003 penetration stood at just 47%, only 2% points higher than in January 2002. Since May, penetration has surged to 50%.

According to the new quarterly data, the use of dial-up services has remained more or less static since the May survey, whilst broadband use has risen to 18%, up from 15% in May. Around three-quarters of all users still connect to the internet using a dial-up service, although the conversion to broadband continues apace.

Oftel also found that UK prices for dial-up internet access are cheaper than other European countries surveyed, with prices for residential broadband generally below the European average.

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