The Office of National Statistics (ONS) has issued its latest quarterly Internet access report to the end of December 2008. Broadband now accounts for 95.1% of all fixed line UK Internet connections, up from 94.1% in September. Unfortunately the overall number of connections, including dialup, declined in Q4 by -0.3%.

Older narrowband dialup connections continued to decline by 17.5% in the quarter as customers migrated onto land-line based broadband solutions. The report also keeps track of average ADVERTISED broadband speeds, which will not reflect the true performance received by customers:


The current recession and natural market saturation are mostly to blame for any declines, although the report fails to include growth from Mobile Broadband connections. It should be noted that this is the final index publication as the survey has now been discontinued.