Britain tops European broadband league as average speed doubles
BRITAIN has marched ahead of its European tech rivals with the lowest number of non-internet users and the highest take up of broadband, according to Ofcom’s second European Broadband Scorecard.
The average home broadband speed has doubled in less than two years, reaching nearly 18 megabits per second (Mbps), putting the UK ahead of Germany, France, Italy and Spain for the number of homes that have access to standard and superfast broadband. The report, released yesterday, also revealed that the UK is leading Europe in online retail by wide margins, 77 per cent of UK citizens bought goods online last year, compared to 20 per cent in Italy.
The UK also boasts the lowest proportion of people who have never used the internet, at just eight per cent a drop from the 11 per cent reported in 2011, far better than Germany (13 per cent), Spain (24 per cent) and Italy (34 per cent).
“This is excellent progress for the UK, but there is more to be done,” said Ofcom chief executive Ed Richards. Britain isn’t ahead in every metric though, Ofcom reports that only 41 per cent of UK citizens interact online with local and national government, far behind France’s 60 per cent.