European Broadband Trends 2007

The European broadband market is growing rapidly. At the end of Q2 2007, there were close to 100 million broadband subscribers in Europe. The five largest markets -- the UK, Germany, France, Spain and Italy -- also experienced robust growth over the past five years. All five countries now have a per-capita penetration rate of higher than 15 percent.

Recent trends in dynamic markets such as the UK and France indicate future directions of the overall European market. Faced with a competitive broadband market and increasing demand, service providers are aggressively shifting their strategies from basic-broadband access to value-added services.

> LLU (local loop unbundling) was a major driver for competition in the UK.

Thanks to this, several new market entrants, including Carphone Warehouse, Sky and Orange UK, are now giving away broadband access for free to differentiate their core service offerings. In a little over a year, Sky signed up more than one million subscribers.

Value-Added Services

In its most recent quarterly financial report, BT disclosed that it had over 300,000 customers for its Broadband Digital Vault service, which provides secure online digital storage.

To further enhance its VAS portfolio, BT recently announced a potential partnership with Google and FON, a large hotspot community operator; plans to add Sony's PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable to its network, enabling video and voice-call capabilities; and engagements with more than 600 startups globally for new innovations.

British Telecom has had some early success with several such offerings. BT noted that its Home IT Advisor service (a digital home management and support service) had 40,000 customers as of May 2007.

Via E-Commerce Times

Broadband upgrade 'could boost businesses'

Proposals that Britain's broadband network should be upgraded to fibre optic connections have the potential to give businesses a boost, it has been suggested.

"It definitely will have an impact on small businesses, especially as the amount of data that we look to transfer increases in size," said Michael Phillips, product director for Broadband Choices.

Tiscali Ranks Highest

Tiscali ranks highest in overall customer satisfaction among eight of the leading broadband Internet service providers (ISPs) in the UK, according to the J.D. Power and Associates 2007 UK Broadband Internet Service Provider Satisfaction Study.

“The 2007 study finds that call waiting times continue to increase when customers contact their ISP, with customers now waiting an average of 17 minutes before initially speaking with a representative,” said Caspar Tearle, director of service industries research at J.D. Power and Associates.

Related Links:
> BT comes last for broadband satisfaction ZDNet UK
> Tiscali tops satisfaction survey IT PRO

> Computer Business Review - IT Week - BBC News

BT to offer bonded broadband

BT Wholesale is to offer ISPs a service that combines multiple broadband links into a single reliable high-speed pipe, for users that want a better service than ADSL, but don't want to pay for a leased line.

"There's a gap in the market, between a single broadband connection, which is good enough for lots of people, and a leased line which costs £1000 a month," said Keith Collins, sales and marketing director at Sharedband, the startup that is providing BT Wholesale with the bandwidth-bonding software.

Future Broadband

UK is lagging behind in the push for next-generation broadband-networks.

BT has said it is unwilling to fund a £15bn fibre-optic network to every home in the UK, and there are concerns over how such a network would make money.


> Find out more about the technologies that could deliver faster broadband.