Ofcom – Fixed Line Broadband ISP Connections Hit 23.22 Million in Q2 2014

The telecom regulator’s latest Telecoms Market Data Tables update for Q2-2014 has reported that the United Kingdom is now home to a total of 23,219,000 fixed line residential and small business broadband ISP connections (excluding corporate lines), which is up by +179,000 in the quarter. Meanwhile BT’s Retail share of the market has continued to rise from 31.6% in Q1 to 32% in Q2.

Interestingly Ofcom has changed the way they present the results to focus purely on general definitions of connection technology, although sadly they continue to jumble up slower hybrid-fibre (FTTC) and separate pure fibre optic (FTTH/P) connections into a single pile under the heading of “FTTx” (note: separate stats suggest that the UK is currently home to over 250,000 pure fibre optic connections and rising).

Never the less it’s good to know that FTTx now equates to 13.2% of all broadband connections, which appears to come via a mix of new customers and the cannibalising of older pure copper ADSL / ADSL2+ (up to 8 / 24Mbps) lines; this occurs as existing ADSL subscribers upgrade to the new service.

The report also reveals that the total number of fixed phone lines (PSTN and ISDN channels) has once again fallen to 32.9 Million, which is a reduction of 495,000 on the same time last year. However it should be said that this period is reflective of a 715,000 fall in the number of business lines, which was partially offset by a 220,000 increase in residential lines. In related news fixed voice services generated £2.0bn in retail revenues in Q2 2014, a fall of £85m (4.0%) over the past 12 months.

On the slip side the estimated retail revenues from mobile telephony services increased by £43 million (1.1%) to £3.9 billion in the year to Q2 2014 and mobile data (mobile broadband) service revenues increased by £57 million (8.7%) to £704 million over the same period. Similarly the number of active mobile subscribers increased by 940,000 (1.2%) to 83.8 million compared with the previous quarter.