UK broadband 56% and climbing

Julian Sharpe | 9:01 am | August 27, 2008 | Events, Mobile, News, Social Media

Broadband coverage has now reached 56% of UK house holds; this is up from 51% a year ago, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS). Overall, 16.46m (65%) of all UK household have access to the web in some form, which is an overall increase of 1.23m last year, with 86% of those having a broadband connection, as it becomes cheaper with the current deals being offered by Sky and Virgin Media.

The latest update from the National Statistic Omnibus said that 15% of people access the web via the following methods:

GPRS mobile phone
3G mobile

The report also revealed the following activities as the most popular:

> Sending and receiving emails was the most popular (87% of people)
> Finding information on products or services (84%)
> Travel or accommodation (63%)
> Online banking (49%)

This year also confirmed the increase on shopping online with 55% of all UK adults have bought online within the last 12 months, with a split of 59% of men and 52% of women, travel-related was the most popular (48%), closely followed by clothes or sports goods (42%) and films or music (41%).