Ofcom publishes market data for first quarter of 2007
The UK broadband market keeps growing bigger and bigger and the latest figures from Ofcom give the number of broadband connections in the UK at 14,365,000 with 2,432,000 unbundled (LLU) connections. The figures are for the first quarter of 2007 and since then LLU has broken the three million barrier. The Ofcom Telecommunications Market Data Tables can be found at www.ofcom.org.uk (PDF).
| Total | BT Retail DSL | Other DSL | Virgin Media | Other (inc. LLU) | BT Retail Share | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2005 | 9,894 | 2,311 | 4,717 | 2,666 | 201 | 23.4% |
| 2006 Q1 | 10,946 | 2,565 | 5,149 | 2,868 | 365 | 23.4% |
| 2006 Q2 | 11,517 | 2,720 | 5,306 | 2,902 | 589 | 23.6% |
| 2006 Q3 | 12,219 | 2,867 | 5,524 | 2,980 | 847 | 23.5% |
| 2006 Q4 | 12,995 | 3,103 | 5,530 | 3,059 | 1,304 | 23.9% |
| 2007 Q1 | 13,849 | 3,541 | 5,243 | 3,146 | 1,918 | 25.6% |
| 2007 Q2 | 14,365 | 3,715 | 5,025 | 3,192 | 2,432 | 25.9% |
Another Ofcom report people may want to look at was released in August 2007 and that is The Communications Market 2007 report. Page 264 of the document sheds some light on a previous OECD report published in July 2007. The Ofcom report enlightens us that the price per Mbps for the UK was based on just three providers, BT, HomeChoice and Telewest. If the OECD report was based on a wider cross-section of providers we may have seen a lower average, but it is impossible to know if similar things have happened to the data from the other 29 countries featured.
An interesting statistic is that LLU services are now available to 72% of households in the UK, and this has been achieved by unbundling just 25% of the exchanges. The remaining 4000 or so exchanges cover just 28% of households, an average of around 2030 lines per exchange.
Comments
Oddly Ofcom doc is titled market data tables Q1 2007
- andrew
- over 9 years ago
so remind me, why don't Virgin Media have "significant market power" ?
Interesting reading but nowhere near as useful as the results thinkbroadband publish each month about what people think of their actual ISPs :)
Thanks for the info, Andrew. But you don't say why 3 million unbundled lines is a barrier. Was this some level BT had set for a target, or was there a previous limit of 3 million?
Andrew, from the figures quoted I think the title should probably read "SECOND quarter of 2007".