UK Broadband Access Holds Up

A recent study by RedSheriff shows that UK users are not falling behind their European counterparts when it comes to Broadband Internet access.

RedSheriff took a sample of over 20 million Internet users accessing sites measured in the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Sweden and Spain.

Sweden had the highest percentage of users accessing sites using broadband, which is not surprising considering they have one of the highest levels of Internet penetration in the world. In fact over 59% of all access to local Internet sites in Sweden was using broadband.

The take-up of broadband in Spain was also impressive with over 57% of users accessing sites through broadband. This put them very close behind Sweden and well ahead of the other countries.

From the countries in the study, Sweden and Spain were the only two to have more users using broadband then those using narrowband access. Behind Sweden and Spain were the UK and France. Not much to choose between them with 41% of UK users using broadband compared to 40% of French users.

At the bottom were Italy and Germany. Surprisingly, Germany had the lowest percentage of users accessing sites via broadband (33%).

Martin Filz of VP of Europe for RedSheriff said: 'It is encouraging to see that a large percentage of UK users are surfing via broadband. This means that they will be generally having a much better experience then counterparts in Germany and Italy. With broadband access there are less frustrations accessing sites and users typically do more and tend to stay longer. This is obviously good news for the site owners. As a happier visitor tends to be more inclined to complete tasks such as purchasing.'

All articles 2006-22 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas unless otherwise stated.

• All news