Ofcom has released its latest quarterly Telecommunications Market Data Tables Q4-2009 (PDF), which includes a breakdown of residential and small business broadband internet connections. This reveals that at the end of last year the UK was host to 18,233,000 fixed line broadband ISP subscribers, an increase of nearly 1 million lines over 2008.

The market share for BT Retail (BT's own consumer and business ISP) during this period has remained almost unchanged at 26.7%. Elsewhere much of the growth has again come from cheaper unbundled ( LLU ) providers and cable solutions ( Virgin Media ), with BT Wholesale supplied ISPs continuing to lose ground. The figures break down as follows.

Q4-2009 UK Fixed Line Broadband Subscribers

BT Retail DSL (ADSL) - 4,876,000 (Q3-2009 = 4,775,000)
Other DSL (exc. LLU) - 3,132,000 (Q3-2009 = 3,220,000)
Virgin Media (Cable) - 3,845,000 (Q3-2009 = 3,781,000)
Other inc. (LLU DSL) - 6,381,000 (Q3-2009 = 6,139,000)

It's easy to see why BT based ISPs having been unable to hold ground. BT Wholesale is years behind its rivals in deploying faster 24Mbps (ADSL2+) broadband products and some of its pricing adjustments over the past 12-24 months have not been popular with ISPs. Meanwhile cheaper LLU providers continue to gain ground with some, such as TalkTalk UK, now targeting 90% coverage.

The above figures do not include corporate, wireless ( Wi-Fi ), Mobile Broadband or Satellite broadband connection statistics. We look forward to seeing if BT's latest generation of 'up to' 40Mbps fibre optic ( FTTC ) broadband products have any impact, although it will probably be 2011 before they start to show any firm adoption.