There is still huge potential for growth in Western European residential broadband adoption, despite a slowdown in the majority of national markets, according to a new report from Forrester Research.
Forrester sees 44% household penetration at the end of 2007 and forecasts a rise to 71% by the end of 2013.By then, any remaining dial-up services will be marginalised, said Forrester, with 98% of online access via broadband.
New access technologies, including WiMAX and fibre-to-the-home (FTTH), will become more prominent, growing from 2% of all broadband households in 2008 to 8% in 2013.
However, it adds that contentious business cases that undermine the existing industry hype around them will limit their adoption unless governments intervene.
It also forecasts that European ISPs will sign up 48 million net connections between 2008 and 2013, although as the pace of adoption varies across countries, the level of churn in Western Europe is expected to grow from 23% in 2008 to 26% by 2013, increasing retention costs for ISPs.
Ofcom’s second annual International Communications Market Report found that advertisers in the UK spend more money per person on internet advertising than any other country, at £33, twice as much as France, Germany and Italy combined (see UK Advertisers Spend More Per Person Online Than Any Other Country).
A recent forecast from Point Topic predicted that the number of broadband customers in the UK will continue growing steadily, but at a lower rate, to reach about 21 million by the end of 2012 (19 million consumer lines and two million business ones).
The online analyst said that about 330,000 and 550,000 consumer broadband lines were added in the middle two quarters of 2007 respectively, the lowest numbers since 2003, and barely half the growth achieved in the previous two quarters.
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