The telecoms watchdog yesterday published its quarterly research reports on consumer use of telephones and mobiles, and business and residential use of the internet. It also released details of a benchmarking study of internet services in the UK, France, Germany, Sweden and some US states.
The research shows that 12.5 million UK households are now on-line, with 750,000 new connections over the last three months alone. Most of these internet customers use dial-up internet access, and at a price cheaper than the European average.
Unmetered services in the UK are more widely available than in the other countries surveyed, while broadband take-up is slower than abroad, at only 10% of the population. Oftel's research suggests this is changing, with around one million internet customers expected to upgrade to broadband over the next year.
David Edmonds, Director General of Telecommunications said:
"Our research shows that 90 per cent of internet customers are happy with their overall service. We look forward to these trends continuing."
