Brits live on technology's bleeding edge - Inquirer

PEOPLE IN BLIGHTY are more likely to live on technology's bleeding edge, according to a report from regulator Ofcom.

UK people are among the best connected for broadband, mobile and digital TV and the UK has seen the fastest growth in smartphone take-up, the regulator claims.

Part of the reason for this is that they enjoying lower prices for communications services than many consumers across the world.

According to Ofcom's fifth International Communications Market report into the global communications market, UK households have comparatively high levels of take-up of communications services, with among the highest take-up of landlines, fixed broadband connections, mobile connections and digital TV.

In comparison Germany has the highest landline take-up with 85 per cent of the population having a landline in comparison to 84 per cent in the UK.

However Italy has the highest mobile take-up with 95 per cent of the population owning a mobile phone in comparison to 91 per cent in the UK.

The Netherlands has the highest fixed broadband take-up with 85 connections per 100 households compared to 70 in UK.

The UK is behind other countries in take-up of VoIP services with only five subscribers for every 100 people, compared with 26 in France and 20 in the Netherlands.

Across most countries, the desktop PC is still the most popular device used to access the Internet at home, followed by the laptop.

However in the UK laptops being the most popular device used to access the Internet at home, used by 69 per cent of Internet users.

The UK is the only country surveyed where more than half of 18-24s use a device other than a desktop PC to use the Internet.

Mobile Internet is also popular with people in the UK with 29 per cent of Internet users saying they use their mobile to access the internet at home, second only to those in Japan at 43 per cent.

A surprising 14 per cent of UK and US consumers also use their games consoles to access the Internet, compared with 7 per cent of Internet users in Germany.

Blighty saw the highest growth in smartphone take-up in the past year with a 70 per cent rise in subscriber numbers between January 2009 and January 2010, compared to 11 per cent in Italy.

Smartphones are more common in Italy where 26 per cent of subscribers have one in comparison to 18 per cent in the UK.

Spain and the UK also have the highest proportion of subscribers paying over £35 or €50 per month for their smartphone services. µ