Ofcom: UK Leads European ‘Big Five’ On Superfast Broadband

The UK continues to have the highest adoption and coverage of superfast broadband among the five biggest European economies, according to the second annual Ofcom European Broadband Scorecard.

The communications regulator measures connectivity in the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain, but found Britain led the way on most coverage metrics – takeup, usage and choice for both mobile and fixed broadband, and also did reasonably well on price.

Availability of superfast broadband (30Mbps or faster) has increased from around 60 percent at the end of 2011 to 73 percent in the latest report, lifting the UK from third position to first in terms of coverage. Nine in 100 people in the UK can now access superfast broadband, more than second-best – Spain, where six in 100 people can access it.

European broadband

The UK also has the highest broadband take-up of all types with 83 percent of households connected, the highest weekly use of the Internet with 87 percent, and the lowest proportion of people never to have used the Internet.

Ofcom has attributed the increases to expanded roll-outs of fibre by BT and Virgin Media, along with the government funded Broadband Delivery UK initiative, which has already brought superfast broadband to more than 300,000 properties.

“This is excellent progress for the UK, but there is more to be done,” says Ofcom’s CEO Ed Richards. “We want to see even wider availability of superfast broadband across the UK, so as many people as possible can enjoy faster speeds to access the Internet.

“There is also more progress to be made to ensure consumers receive consistently high quality of service, including faster line repairs and installations for broadband and telephony.”

The government is aiming to bring superfast broadband to 95 percent of the UK population by 2017 and has announced details of a further £250 million to be distributed to local authorities to extend coverage to areas not covered by commercial roll-outs or BDUK. Communications minister Ed Vaizey has welcomed Ofcom’s findings.

“As part of the government’s long term economic plan, broadband in the UK is going through a remarkable transformation,” he says. “The government’s rollout of superfast broadband is accelerating – Britons already do more business online than any other European country, and the news that we now have the best superfast coverage of all five leading European economies is testament to the progress made to date.”

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