Britain still falls behind Europe for broadband.

EUROPEMEDIA-(C)2002 Van Dusseldorp & Partners - http://www.vandusseldorp.com/

Britain still lags behind the rest of Europe for broadband take up, a new study by NetValue confirms.

Of the seven countries measured in the study, Denmark tops the list with 24.5 per cent

However, broadband usage has doubled in the UK since December, when the number of households using a high-speed connection was only 2.6 per cent.

Operators have blamed the slow take-up on high prices and lack of competition in the UK market. A report by UK telecoms regulator Oftel found that recent price cuts had increased subscriptions and has actually made consumer broadband packages cheaper in the UK than in France or Germany.

In spite of this price competition, France, Germany and Spain still have more than twice as many households connecting via broadband than the UK.

Broadband users tend to spend more time online than the average user, the study found. In the UK, broadband users connected to the internet for an average of 16.7 hours compared with only 8.4 hours for the average internet user.

French broadband users connected for an average of 25.7 hours compared with only 9.1 hours for the average internet user.

<b>Audio-video downloads</b>

Spain continues to lead for streaming usage, with France in second position.

Spain leads audio-video usage for all internet users with 40.7 per cent of all Spanish users using this protocol. Nearly 70 per cent of Spanish broadband users accessed this protocol.

France comes in second with 26.9 per cent. The figure for the UK increases to 35.8 per cent for broadband users from 16.8 per cent of all Internet users.

<b>High-speed online gaming</b>

Another key area for broadband users is online gaming, but it has yet to take off in the UK. Broadband connections enable real-time, high-speed interactive gaming. Interactive gamers using a dialup modem to connect to the internet are at a disadvantage to those players using broadband.

For example, in the UK only 1.5 per cent of all internet users visit interactive gaming sites. This figure is three times higher for broadband users at 4.9 per cent.

In Spain, this figure is more pronounced, increasing from 8.8 per cent for all internet users to nearly 24 per cent for broadband users. ((Distributed via M2 Communications Ltd - http://www.m2.com))