Broadband Blighty gets a rural flavour

Broadband Britain is flying a tweed flag: fat pipe penetration in rural areas has outstripped urban areas for the first time, according to an Ofcom report.

Across the UK as a whole, the statistics show there is a greater proportion of households with high speed internet access in the countryside than in built-up areas: 59 per cent to 57 per cent.

Ofcom's digital nation

England
♦  The English spend more time on the internet than in any of the UK's other nations, going online for an average of 12.4 hours on the internet, and 77 per cent of their time online is used to send emails and IMs, and visit chatrooms.
♦  People in England are using their mobile in different ways other than to make calls. Some 21 per cent use it to access the internet, rising to 32 per cent in London. Birmingham is highest with a third of people using mobile internet.

Northern Ireland
♦  Mobile users in Northern Ireland are more likely to access the internet through their phone with 23 per cent doing so, compared to the UK figure of 20 per cent. They are also nearly twice as likely than any other nation to watch video content this way
♦  More people in Northern Ireland listen to the radio or MP3 downloads on their mobile than any other nation or region. On average, one in five people in the region listens to the radio or MP3 downloads via their mobile

Scotland
♦  People in Scotland are more likely to do several media activities at the same time - also known as "media stacking". Two-thirds of Scots spend time talking on their mobile while using the internet. This is almost double the number of people in Wales who media stack these activities
♦  Mobile phone owners in Scotland are using them less to access the internet than the other nations at 15 per cent compared to the UK average of 20 per cent

Wales
♦  There are more mobile-only households in Wales than in any other part of the UK, with 19 per cent of households compared to the UK figure of 12 per cent
♦  There are more than 16,000 pages of Wikipedia in Welsh - the highest number of pages in an indigenous language after English, and twice as many as were written in Irish Gaelic.

And the same is true of all regions of the UK - with rural households in England and Northern Ireland two per cent better connected than their urban neighbours, while in Scotland country folk are seven per cent up on the urbanities and in Wales the figure is eight per cent.

The watchdog claims this marks an important shift for Blighty as, back in 2000 when broadband was introduced, urban households were first to sign up - prompting fears of a digital divide opening up based on high speed internet connectivity.

Ed Richards, Ofcom CEO, said in a statement: "Our report highlights a closing of the geographic digital divide in the UK. Rural households are today as well connected to broadband, as their urban neighbours."

Fat pipe penetration across the whole of Blighty stands at 57 per cent of households - up 12 percentage points in 12 months. Ofcom's third Communications Market Report: Nations and Regions shows broadband take-up has increased across all regions of the UK, with England up 13 percentage points to 58 per cent penetration; Scotland up 11 points to 53 per cent; and Northern Ireland up 10 points to 52 per cent.

Wales had the lowest growth rate, rising just three percentage points on last year to hit 45 per cent fat pipe penetration.

The research also looked at homes that rely solely on mobile phones, instead of installing a landline, and found 12 per cent of UK households do this - more than ever before. Wales saw the highest growth, with around a fifth (19 per cent) of homes being mobile-only, while the UK city with the highest rate of mobile-only households is Greater Manchester where almost a third (28 per cent) do without a traditional telephone.

Additional findings in the report include digital television penetration - which stands at 85 per cent of households across the UK, up 10 percentage points since 2006. And DAB digital radio penetration - which stands at 22 per cent nationally, a four point rise.