By silicon.com, 8 July 2004 16:50
NEWS 08/07/1999: Internet usage has reached 17 per cent of the population in the UK - still outstripping other European countries, according to a new report out by research house InternetTrak.
However, Germany and France are catching up fast with 16 per cent and 13 per cent respectively. The report also discovered that despite a slower growth rate in the UK, up to 24 per cent of web users are buying goods off the net and spending an average of £1,701 per year. The report cited the growth of free internet access in the UK as the main reason the web's popularity in this country.
08/07/2004: The latest official government figures show that almost half of UK households – 12.1 million – could access the internet from home and the number of overall subscriptions to the net is up by 8.8 per cent over the last year.
The make-up of UK internet access is, however, changing. Dial-up access continues to fall while broadband adoption picks up pace. While free internet access was a boost to early growth, it fell sharply once providers got their hands burnt trying to figure out the business model for it. Free access or billing now only makes up a third of internet connections in the UK.
Now the UK's telecoms regulator is talking about the next generation of broadband and in the meantime online shopping is in rude health with a recent survey predicting that by 2009, a quarter of all shopping will be done online.
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