UK Leads Tech Adoption But Lags In Broadband

UK consumers are among the most eager adopters of new technologies in the world, with smartphone use jumping 70 percent last year, but the UK is lagging far behind other countries when it comes to super-fast broadband and mobile speeds.

These were the findings of Ofcom’s latest International Communications Market report, which looks at take-up, availability and use of broadband, landlines, mobiles, TV and radio in the UK and 16 other countries.

Brits are among the best keen to use broadband, mobile and digital TV, according to the report, and tend to favour portable and on-demand services. More than two thirds prefer to use a laptop to log on to the Internet at home rather than a desktop, and 29 percent use their mobile to access the Internet at home.

Consumers in the UK are also some of the most prolific online shoppers, spending more money online than any other country in Europe. The number of online purchases made by Brits in the past six months was more than double that in any other major European country except Poland.

Britain lags on broadband

While British households are among the most eager to be connected, with a high level of take-up for fixed broadband and mobile connections, fewer than one in 50 households in the UK had a superfast broadband connection at the end of 2009. Mobile broadband is also lagging, the report found, with consumers only able to achieve maximum theoretical download speeds of 7.2Mbps – largely due to the lack of HSPA+ and LTE services.

“We still have challenges on super-fast broadband take-up. We are not where we want to be but plans are well under way and, if they are fully met, will take us to a strong position,” said Ed Richards, chief executive of Ofcom, speaking to BBC News.

Ofcom highlighted that there are large scale deployments of superfast networks around the world, and the UK compares well with its target of 66 percent of households to have access to next-generation broadband by 2015.

Improvements in the works

Last month, Ofcom announced that the long-awaited auction of the 800Mhz and 2.6Ghz high-speed data spectrum would take place in Q1 2012. The auction is predicted to fuel an explosion of 4G networks.

However, while it should allow the LTE standard for 4G to be implemented in the UK by the beginning of 2013, analyst house Informa has warned that it will not be economically viable to upgrade the UK’s mobile broadband network to LTE until 2015.

Ofcom is also working on plans to free up valuable spectrum in the UK by making use of the “white space” between the signals from TV broadcasts, wireless microphones and wireless cameras.

Meanwhile, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) is preparing to publish its broadband strategy paper this month, following the government’s pledge to invest £530 million in the improvement of the UK’s broadband infrastructure.

“Broadband helps more people, provides more benefits per pound and is greener than even the most modern railway,” said Tim Johnson, chief analyst at Point Topic. “George Osborne needs to shave another billion or so out of other investment programmes to give us a truly modern economy.”