United Kingdom Summary

The UK telecoms market has seen falling prices for consumers and reduced household spending on telecoms services in 2009. In June 2009, the UK Government adopted an ambitious 'Digital Britain' plan. It aims to open new bands of the radio spectrum, ensure universal broadband access at a speed of at least 2 Mbps by 2012 and provide public support to the deployment of NGA networks. As one of the follow-up actions to the ‘Digital Britain’ plan, the UK Parliament adopted the Digital Economy Act in April 2010, which inter alia tackles digital piracy.

Fixed broadband penetration continued to rise throughout 2009, although at a much slower pace, and now stands at 29.8% while mobile broadband penetration is at 6.7%. The UK has one of the largest shares in the EU of fixed broadband lines offering speeds of between 2 to 10 Mbps (78.4%).

On the other hand, the share of high-speed lines above 10Mbps comprise 19.8% of all connections, which is below the EU average of 23.2%. Mobile penetration reached 126.2% in 2009. For the first time, people used their mobile phones more than their fixed lines in 2009.