A nation of broadband amateurs
Posted 17 October 2007 at 8:25AM by Simon Dickson in Doing business online
The latest research on UK internet usage, published by Point Topic and reported by TechCrunch UK, says 90 per cent of home internet users are spending six hours or more online each week. It's further evidence of the status of the internet, and specifically broadband, as an essential part of modern life.
Figures from the government's National Statistics website (PDF) suggest that slowly but surely, the remaining dial-up customers are making the switch: by June 2007, 86% of UK internet connections were broadband, continuing the steady upward trend. Just over half the country's broadband connections were at speeds of 2Mbps or less; 43% were between 2 and 8Mbps; and 4% were even faster.
Naturally these higher speeds make us more likely to consume digital media, with another National Statistics study (PDF) showing two-thirds of adult internet users going online every day or almost every day. More than half said they had never had any online training, whether formal or from friends and family'. But I'm a bit surprised to see that only 59% said they felt they had good enough computer skills to get a new job in the next year.
It's no real surprise to see that 'films, music or DVDs' and 'travel, accommodation or holidays' are the things we're most likely to have spent our money on. But given the amount of advertising we're subjected to, I probably expected more than 6% of people to have purchased 'gambling or lotteries' - that's actually a lower figure than the previous year.
Tags: broadband, gambling, national statistics, point topic, techcrunch, training
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