A new study from budget broadband ISP PlusNet, which surveyed 3,360 UK mums between mid February and March 2012, has discovered that the vast majority (82%) rely on the internet for parental advice, 41% do their weekly shop online to save time and for some reason more than half (51%) even researched their children’s homework online.
Wispa Limited, an outspoken group of consultants who believe homes and businesses in Wales (UK) deserve better broadband, claims to have estimated the “true cost of a lack of rural broadband” to the Welsh economy and population. Apparently a poorly served household in Wales could be paying £3769.20 extra per year due to a lack of adequate internet connectivity.
The International Data Corporation (IDC), a global telecoms analyst firm, has predicted that “power users” who consume a “disproportionate amount of bandwidth” will drive internet generated broadband traffic to grow by approximately 50% year over year on fixed line ISP networks and double on mobile platforms.
The results from 830 respondents (polled during February 2012) to our latest monthly reader survey has revealed that almost three quarters (71%) of respondents would be willing to pay more to upgrade their current service with a reliable superfast broadband (25Mbps+) connection, yet over half (55%) still point to a lack of availability as being the main barrier to their adoption.
Europe’s Digital Agenda strategy, which among other things aims to make superfast broadband ISP speeds of 30Mbps+ available to everybody by 2020, could deliver a “digital bonus” worth up to £93.29 Billion (110bn Euros Annually) in regional Gross Domestic Product (more than 0.8% of GDP).
Analyst firm Point Topic has today joined with the European Commission (EC) to launch “the most detailed broadband coverage mapping survey ever made across Europe,” which will be used to monitor any progress by telecoms operators towards the EU’s Digital Agenda goals.
Mobile operator and ISP O2 UK (Telefonica) has released its latest quarterly results to the end of December 2011 (Q4-2011), which showed that their rate of fixed line home broadband subscriber decline had significantly slowed from -27,600 in Q3 to -5,000 in Q4 for a new total of 620,300.