The UK telecoms regulator, Oftel, has issued its latest (October) broadband brief, which covers the market statistics from previous months. The end of September saw 2,628,000 people connected up with some form of broadband access.

45% (population wise) of UK homes and businesses are covered by cable modem technology, of which 1,232,000 had chosen to adopt it. On the other hand ADSL is estimated to cover 80%, with 1,708 enabled exchanges and 1,380,000 users.

Overall 50% of UK homes now have Internet access, with 65% of SMEs also adopting the technology. Interestingly 34% of homes chose to use an unmetered dialup connection, with 30% of SMEs doing the same.

Clearly dialup is in decline, yet it's slow pace out of the market means that it should still be a strong force for some years to come.