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NewsGlobe: Today's News
UK Broadband connections take top place
Dial-up connections fall dramatically
by Kendrick Struthers-Watson
Since the Office for National Statistics (ONS) began its index in 2001, the market share of broadband Internet connections in the UK has been increasing, reflecting its continuing popularity, widespread availability and increasingly competitive connection packages.
According to ONS, almost nineteen out of twenty connections to the Internet are via broadband and in September 2008, broadband connections accounted for 94.1 percent of all Internet connections, up from 92.8 percent in June 2008, resulting in a year on year increase of broadband connections of 7.6 percent.
Despite continuing increases in broadband connections, an 18.6 percent decrease in dial-up resulted on a 0.4 percent fall in the index of all connections between June and September 2008, to 118.4. Dial-up connections continued to decrease with a year on year fall I the index of 49.6 percent to September 2008, giving a quarterly decrease from June to September 2008 of 18.6 percent.
Accelerating speed
The proportion of higher speed connections in the UK continues to increase. In September 2008, 57.7 percent of broadband connections had a speed greater than 2 Mbps which is an increase from 55.8 percent in June 2008. Over the same period, the percentage of connections with a speed of less than or equal to 2 Mbps decreased to 42.3 percent in September 2008, down from 44.2 percent in June.
ONS says that the Internet Service Providers survey is carried out in line with rigorous standards of all national statistics. However, it points out there is no current definitive population of ISP’s from which to sample and therefore the index should be treated with some caution.
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