Korea leads the world in broadband usage - 05/2001

The UK is still lagging far behind Asia, Europe and the US in home broadband connections, according to the latest figures from Internet monitoring company NetValue. The UK comes tenth out of 11 in the NetValue rankings for broadband (cable, satellite or ADSL), ahead of only China out of the countries surveyed.

* 3 month average: Dec/Jan/Feb

In the UK, one in 32 online households use broadband. In Korea, more than one in two (57.3 percent) have this connection, and in the US it is one in nine (11.1 percent). In France, one in 16 online households have a broadband connection twice the UK rate.

The UK has 258,000 households with a broadband connection, 3.1 percent of online households. This is up from a figure of 1.6 percent in November.

German ISDN usage
Although only 5 percent of Internet households in Germany are using a broadband connection, Germany leads the other countries included in the report for ISDN usage. In February 2001, 37.8 percent of German Internet households connected via ISDN, followed by Denmark with 19.5 percent of households.

* 3 month average: Dec/Jan/Feb

US broadband usage v modem usage
The US is second behind Korea in percentage of households connecting via broadband, with one in nine online households using broadband. Specific user groups have emerged as ìearly adoptersî of broadband - specifically, the 14 and under age group who account for 9.1 percent of users connecting via broadband in February. In comparison, this age group only accounts for 6.7 percent of modem usage.

Global audio-video usage
Broadband allows Internet users better access to richer online material. With more than half of Korean households (57.3 percent) connecting via broadband, 73.9 percent of the Korean population used audio or video in February, and over half (54.1 percent) used a gaming protocol. Over a third of Internet users in Hong Kong used audio/video and Spain had the highest audio/video usage in Europe (33.8 percent). In contrast, only 29.5 percent of US Internet users and 23.8 percent of UK Internet users viewed or used audio. Broadband and audio/video trends emerging in Korea are good indicators of what the future may hold for Europe and the US.