UK loses out to US in broadband battle
As BT trials long-distance ADSL
Broadband looks to be well on its way to making the transition from internet luxury to connectivity must-have.According to figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), the numbers of broadband connections has doubled over the past 12 months, while the number of dial-up connections fell by almost six per cent.
Subscriptions to the internet were also on the up – there was a year-on-year increase of just over eight per cent from February 2003 to February 2004.
Although the market as a whole is still dominated by dial-up – around three-quarters of all connections were made via narrowband in February – Brits are making the switch in ever-greater numbers, chiefly because of the "continued marketing drive and increase in availability", according to the ONS.
BT announced today that the issue of availability is big on its agenda too, with the telco saying it now thinks that it can now offer its ADSL service over a longer distance than previously thought. At present, a home or business whose connection to the local exchange is more than six kilometres long generally can't get ADSL. However, BT is now looking to push that upper limit to as much as 10 kilometres.
A broadband trial of the long-distance technology is taking place in Milton Keynes this summer and could eventually make the high-speed internet access available to another million people across Britain.
Broadband is also taking off Stateside, with figures from the Pew Internet and American Life Project saying that 55 per cent of Americans access the internet at home or work via broadband.
However, 39 per cent of all home connections were made over broadband – that's 48 million adults on the broadband bandwagon – compared with 23.4 per cent of all connections being made with always-on internet in the UK.
Unlike UK users, the rapid rate of transfer to broadband is more to do with users' short attention spans than vendors' clever marketing.
"Impatience with tiresomely slow dial-up connections seems to tip home users into the broadband column and this impatience plays a larger role than price of service in home adoption," the report says.
ZDNet UK's Graeme Wearden contributed to this report.