Broadband pressure group slams OFTEL findings
Claims made by the Official Telephone Regulator, OFTEL, of faster broadband take-up in the UK than in other countries have been challenged by the Better Broadband for Britain group.
The pressure group alleges Government figures are being compared as like for like with other nationalities' broadband roll-out statistics when the criteria they measure is grossly different. For example, Richard Nuttall, Director of Better Broadband for Britain, says the Government's claims that the UK offers cheaper business broadband services than all other countries surveyed, neglects the fact that Sweden's classification of 'business broadband' refers to a two meg connection. UK business broadband is defined as a connection speed of 500 kbps, a quarter of the speed, which costs the same as its Swedish counterpart.
OFTEL's report said UK broadband take-up is growing faster than Canada and Germany.
"Apples are being compared to pears," Mr Nuttall said. "Canada has a higher take-up than the rest of Europe. If UK take-up is rising faster than in Germany, this would be because Germany already has a higher installed base of more than seven million users. What's more, in Canada and Germany they provide a roughly 100 per cent coverage. In the UK, it is about 66 per cent, and rising very slowly."
David Edmonds, Director General of Telecommunications, said: "Broadband connections have now reached 28,000 a week in the UK. This puts the UK in a strong position to build on the one million connections it passed recently during October."
"So only six million more to go to catch Germany!" Mr Nuttall replied.
"While there have been improvements recently, the UK is starting from a low user base, and we have a long way to go to catch other countries, where Governments have more commitment to broadband and better regulation. This has meant cheaper prices and faster take-up.
"The Government says it is committed to putting £1 billion into broadband for key public service networks, but this is not being co-ordinated at the local community level, so the NHS and the DFES are building separate networks.
"Broadband availability is only about 25 per cent of the country right now, leaving huge areas with no coverage at all. The Government needs to move faster to support small communities who want broadband now, but are not on the current build programme. The Government should avoid using statistics to put the best possible light on broadband and obscuring the real position, and focus on driving both network build and development of new applications."
UK consumers have a choice of around 200 DSL providers, and cable modems.
Take up in the UK still remains relatively low when compared with other European countries because of the comparatively late starting date broadband was introduced in the UK.
When broadband is offered at £25 or below demand for the service rises rapidly, according to analysts, fd-tm.com, and Reed Electronics Research (RER).
While Britain only has some four per cent of urban households on broadband, it won 25 per cent of all Europe's 115,000 new broadband connections in September 2002, according to OFTEL's report.