Broadband is doing well in the UK but customers are still not sold on 'high-speed' access

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Brits big on broadband

But scare stories and cloudy speed claims are putting people off

Andrea-Marie Vassou, Computeract!ve 22 Nov 2007

Nearly nine out of 10 connections to the internet in the UK are now made via broadband, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

In its latest survey, the organisation found that 88.4 per cent of Britons are using broadband over dial-up - up by nearly a third from 12 months ago.

The number of people using broadband over dial-up is almost the reverse that of four years ago. In 2003, four-fifths of people went online via dial-up modems and less than a fifth had broadband.

However, despite the fact broadband use has grown, the ONS also found that broadband registrations were slowing down with the figure for September only being slightly up on the June total of 86.2 per cent.

Tim Johnson, chief analyst at analyst group Point Topic, said this was because potential users had been put off by reported problems in getting a broadband connection up and running, and confused by the gap between promised and actual broadband speeds.

Michael Phillips, product director at Broadband Choices, agreed. He said: “There is a significant minority of consumers that have been put off broadband by scare stories of poor customer service, connection problems and underwhelming download speeds."

The ONS statistics also found that just under half of people using broadband are signing up to speeds between 2Mbits/sec and 8Mbits/sec and only one in five are using services faster than 8Mbits/sec.

Mr Phillips again blamed the lack of transparency amongst internet service providers. He said: “Many users are highly sceptical that they will actually achieve the 'super fast' speeds of 10Mbps or more being advertised."

He called on Ofcom to force ISPs to advertise broadband clearly based on the typical speed that most consumers on a particular package were actually achieving.

This is something Ofcom has recently begun to consider thanks to Computeractive’s Crystal Clear broadband campaign which has set up a petition to make ISPs be clearer about speeds prior to subscription.

If you want to join the call for a fairer deal for consumers, you can add your name to the petition here.

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