Over 50% Of UK Surfers Now Using Broadband

According to the research, the number of individuals actively surfing the internet at home each month has increased by 15% to 22.8 million over the past year. Of these, just over 50% (11.5 million) are using high speed broadband connections to access the internet, a dramatic rise of 117% from twelve months ago when just 5.3 million surfed the internet at high speed.

High speed connections are most popular with households of five or more people, while smaller households favour slower connection speeds of up to 56k. Not surprisingly, those with high speed connections spend twice as long online each month – over 32 hours – than their lower speed counterparts.

This seemingly exponential rise in the number of people subscribing to high speed broadband services, allowing them access to music and entertainment online, is likely to provide those sites attracting the majority of users from this group with a host of new opportunities.

Gabrielle Prior, European Internet Analyst said: “Twelve months ago high speed internet users made up less than one quarter of the audience, now they are more than 50% – and we expect this number to keep growing. As the number of high speed surfers grows in the UK, websites will need to adapt, update and enhance their content to retain their vistors and encourage new ones. In the future, websites will be ‘sped’ out of the market, not ‘priced out’.”