Ofcom Says Over 40% Of Brits Shun Broadband

As Lord Carter pushes to get broadband access into every UK home by 2012, Ofcom boss Ed Richards has revealed new figures which show that many people don’t actually want broadband in their homes.

Over 40% of the 25 million households within the UK do not currently have broadband access. There are varying reasons for this and it seems that more than half of them (55%) actually choose not to have the service in their home. This group of people are known as the “self excluded” group.

30% cannot afford to have broadband access in their homes and are known to be “financially excluded” while 15% cannot afford the service and don’t particularly want it either – the “duel excluded” households.

In his Digital Britain report, Lord Carter not only wants every home in the UK to have broadband access by 2012, he also wants them to have a minimum broadband speed of 2Mbps.

Currently around 15% of UK homes (1.5 million households) are unable to receive the 2Mbps broadband download speed target.

Overall these figures show that whilst every UK home may have access to broadband (either fixed or mobile) in the future, there are many households that simply do not want it.

Either way, a lot of work still needs to be done to improve the UK’s broadband infrastructure to meet the expectations laid down in Lord Carter’s Digital Britain Report.