Telecoms analyst Point Topic claims that the UK broadband market has delivered its "best third quarter since 2008" after adding 289,000 new broadband lines in Q3 2011 (up from +240,100 in Q2) to total 20.4m, which represents an annual growth of 6.4%. The firm also "expects superfast take up to accelerate quite significantly" in 2012.

Apparently UK consumers are now "gaining an appetite for superfast broadband services". That comes in stark contrast to today's Ofcom report (here), which found that 59% of UK households now have access to a superfast broadband ISP service but by June 2011 only 4% had subscribed to one.


Indeed back in May 2011 Point Topic warned that the roll-out of superfast broadband around the UK had fallen "a long way behind" the governments plan, with consumer take-up also proving to be almost equally "sluggish" (here). At the time they warned that fewer consumers than expected would adopt the new services but now seem to be changing their tune.


Virgin Media recently reported that 54% of its new subscribers in Q3-2011 took superfast broadband at 30Mbps or more, although it was also offered as a one-off £30 speed upgrade to 20Mbps (XL) customers and for awhile suffered due to performance woes with the new SuperHub router (here). Separate evidence from BT points to similar growth.


Sadly Point Topic doesn't state what its current forecast is for 2012, although their more pessimistic May 2011 report predicted 6.7 Million superfast broadband lines by the end of 2015 (excludes stats for Virgin Media's cable network).

BT's UK FTTC coverage is also expected to reach 40% of homes next year, before moving on towards their official target of 66% in 2014. This could well be extended further depending on how the Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) office allocates its funding.