Broadband in need of quality drive
16 July 2004
Europe is preoccupied with broadband penetration and needs to refocus on providing good quality broadband access, a new report argues.
Jupiter Research predicts that within five years 59 per cent of all European households be online, and that broadband will account for two-thirds of these connections.
However, the study "European Broadband Forecast, 2003 to 2009" warns that the quality of services will vary wildly.
Whilst the continent has rapidly adopted broadband, governments have focussed more on the rollout of high-speed Internet access rather than ensuring consistent quality.
Cheap low-tier products, with connections slower than 512 kbps or with metered tariffs, have proven successful and now constitute 29 per cent of Europe's broadband market.
But high-speed tiers are growing in popularity at the same time because of the additional services they can offer such as Internet-based telephony and video downloads.
"Across Europe broadband is evolving at markedly different rates, speeds and prices," said lead author of the report and Jupiter Research analyst, Ian Fogg.
"This has major implications for digital content companies. They need to assess not just the availability of broadband in markets where they are looking to push services, but also the suitability of each country's broadband population as this will impact the market for key broadband applications."
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