London Regional ICT Champion

Rural areas of the UK are better connected to broadband than their urban neighbours, a new Ofcom report published here today reveals. England only summary here and full PDF (916kb) here.

Here are the edited highlights:

Rural vs Urban
Across the UK as a whole, 59% of households in rural areas now have broadband compared to 57% of urban areas.

• In Northern Ireland its 54% of households in rural areas with broadband and 52% in urban areas.
• In Scotland, 59% of rural households have broadband compared to 52% of urban households.
• The biggest difference is in Wales where 51% of rural households have broadband, in contrast to 43% of urban households.

Broadband take-up
Overall, broadband is in 57% of households across the UK – up from 45% in twelve months – and take-up has also increased steadily in the nations and regions.

• England saw the highest growth, up 13% to 58%.
• Sunderland is the UK’s most connected city with 66%
• In London and Edinburgh 62%, Newcastle 55%, Liverpool 40% of households have broadband
• The East of England region has the highest proportion of broadband households at 68%.
• East Midlands is at the lower end of the scale with only 37% of households having broadband.

Mobile-only homes on the rise
At 12%, more UK households than ever before now rely solely on a mobile phone.

• Some 12% of homes in England are mobile-only, an increase of 3%.
• In the UK’s cities, Greater Manchester has the highest levels of mobile-only homes at 28%, followed by Londonderry/Derry at 27%. Elsewhere, the mobile-only proportion of homes is Birmingham (22%), Yorkshire and Humber (18%), Greater Manchester (28%), and Liverpool (21%).
• However, in London the proportion relying on mobile telephony is lower than average (7%).
• Wales saw the highest growth of mobile-only homes up 9% with around a fifth of all homes (20%) mobile-only.
• In Northern Ireland, around one in ten households (11 %) are mobile-only, up 1% per cent in 12 months.
• Scotland was the only nation where the number of mobile-only homes fell slightly from 14 % to 12%.

Mobile 2.0
People in England are using their mobile in different ways other than to make calls.

• Some 21% use it to access the internet, rising to 32% in London. Birmingham is highest with a third of people using mobile internet. People living in rural parts of Devon and Cornwall are least likely to go online via their mobile at just 7%.
• Watching television or video on a mobile phone is also becoming more popular with 4% of adults in England now viewing content this way. The figure rises to 10% of adults in Liverpool and 15% in Birmingham.