The Office of National Statistics (ONS) has issued its latest quarterly Internet access report to the end of March (Q1-2007). Broadband now accounts for 82.8% of all Internet connections, up by 3.3% from 79.5% in December 2006.

New Internet connections have also been going up, with an increase of 2.6% seen over the quarter. Dial-up connections have continued to decline and now account for less than one in five of all connections:


The ONS also includes a very rough guide to average Internet access speeds. By March 2007 some 55.3% of people were connecting at 2Mbps or less, compared with 60.9% in December 2006.

Over the same period the number of surfers connecting at between 2 and 8Mbps increased from 33.3% (Dec'06) to 37.2% (Mar'07). Likewise those able to connect at speeds faster than 8Mbps increased from 1.9% (Dec'06) to 2.2% (Mar'07). It was not possible to determine speed for the remaining 5.4%.