NEWS
The UK has been slow to adopt new services such as VoIP and IPTV compared to other countries, research from telecoms watchdog Ofcom reveals.
Only 0.4 per cent of UK consumers subscribe to either IPTV or VoIP, making Brits among the slowest to catch on to the new telecoms services when compared to other industrialised countries included in the Ofcom report.
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When it comes to logging on to watch TV, China leads the way.
More than three-quarters of Chinese broadband users have watched downloadable or streaming music video clips and 70 per cent watch TV over broadband, despite only 12 per cent of Chinese homes having broadband.
Japan came second with 45 per cent of people watching TV over broadband, compared with 37 per cent in Italy and the US.
The UK came in second to last with just over a third of the UK having watched TV via broadband, compared with only 27 per cent for last-place France.
Nearly a third of the survey's respondents said going online had prompted them to watch less television by traditional means.
Ofcom fell silent earlier this month on proposed regulations for the UK's burgeoning internet telephony industry.
The Ofcom International Communications Market Report compared consumer attitudes to new telecoms services and industry performance in the UK with China, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Republic of Ireland, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Sweden and the United States.
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1. Nigel Goodey
Possibly because we all pay for a one-off TV Licence in the UK and then get to watch some good-quality TV for free. Lots of households then object to paying again for much of the drivel served up on subscription services. I admit there are some quality exceptions to that rule, but if I could just pay a one-off fee each time to watch those programmes (a la iTV/iTunes project) then I would willingly start to use my 8Mb broadband for those.