Broadband: The state we're in
Published: 30 Mar 2004 17:35 BST
Based on competitiveness, which measures choice, price and regulation, the UK also comes in third. However, in terms of take-up, even the UK government has to admit to a mere a shared sixth place with Italy in the G7 ranking -- effectively joint bottom of the class.
The disappointing take-up ranking is down to several factors, says Michael Philpott, broadband analyst at Ovum. Firstly, BT was late to introduce the technology compared with incumbents in other countries. A second factor is that, although pricing has come down between 10 and 15 per cent over the last year, broadband is still relatively expensive, especially when compared with other nations. The situation also hasn't been helped by a general lack of service-level-agreement provisioning, although this is now starting to change as more business-oriented SDSL services become available.
Small companies confused
A third issue is that, although replacing ISDN with DSL, for example, can pay for itself in a couple of months, the providers have not got their messaging right and many small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in particular, are simply confused and do not see the benefits, says Quocirca's Longbottom.
"There is still a strong need for education on what broadband can and can't do and the vendors don't help with things like contention. Many businesses don't understand this and so get confused when offered a 1Mbps ADSL line at 10:1 contention for, say, £90 per month, or a 1Mbps ADSL line at 5:1 contention for, say, £130 per month," he warns.
Not all bad
Contention refers to the number of customers that share a line. This means a business opting for a connection with a 10:1 contention rate will have to share it with nine other customers. Obviously this can slow the line down considerably if everyone uses it at the same time.
Still, it's not all bad news. According to BT, DSL technology is now available to 85 percent of homes and businesses across the country, a figure that will jump to 90 percent by this summer and 100 percent by the end of next year. And Ofcom claims that cable modem access is now provided to 11 million or 45 percent of residences if they require it.
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I live in a village in the north west of england.... Robert Anderson -
I think that you will find South Korea is No. 1 fo... Iqbal Bedi
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Price reduction of Broadband anywhere,
30 day... Marcus Scarlett
