UK business broadband speeding up

The proportion of workplaces with downstream broadband speed of 10Mbps and above rose from 18% to 25% between October 2007 and May 2008. 13% already have 50Mbps or more.

The latest survey* of organisations, including the public sector, conducted by Point Topic shows that they are already going for faster broadband and what is more, many expect to need even greater speeds in future.

“Over 800,000 workplaces will be in the market for more bandwidth”, says Tim Johnson, senior analyst at Point Topic. “45% of UK premises expect to want more speed within the next two to three years and 7% significantly more”.

The bigger the business, the more likely it is to need more bandwidth. 61% of respondents from medium or larger workplaces and businesses – those with more than 10 employees – said they expected to need higher speeds, but only 39% of those from smaller premises said so.

At present, 8Mbps is the most common downstream speed in 33% of British workplaces. Despite being still by far the biggest share, this represents an 8% reduction since October 2007, as a result of companies migrating to higher speed broadband in recent months.

The majority of those who choose speeds higher than 8Mbps reported a speed of 10Mbps (12%). 5% are on 50Mbps packages, 6% on 100Mbps, while just 2% reported a broadband speed of over 100Mbps.

On the other hand, the proportion on speeds of less than 2Mbps has remained largely unchanged since the last survey conducted in October 2007. The latest survey showed that 21% of businesses are reporting this speed.

“Remote access, remote helpdesks, video conferencing and VOIP are all becoming more embedded in day to day organisational use. These applications are the primary drivers for the increasing speeds organisations require now and in the future,” concludes Johnson.

*BBUS Business Survey 4: May 2008, 1000 online and 500 telephone respondents, surveyed by B2B International and Continental Research respectively.

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For more information and associated charts and tables, please contact:

Point Topic: Oliver Johnson
Email: oliver {at} point-topic(.)com
Tel. +44 (0) 20 3301 3303

About Point Topic

http://point-topic.msgfocus.com/c/11Ll4EdJhlNCsvf

Point Topic is an analyst company focusing entirely on broadband. Point Topic’s international services have a global reputation for providing the most up-to-date and authoritative user statistics, supplier profiles and applications reports on DSL, FTTx, cable and other broadband services worldwide.

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