UK offers best 'superfast' broadband in Europe

Latest reports from telecoms regulator Ofcom says Brits get access to better broadband than Spain, Germany, Italy or France

Britain offers the “best” broadband compared with Europe’s five leading countries, according to Ofcom, the country’s telecoms regulator.

Britain offers the “best” broadband compared with Europe’s five leading countries, according to Ofcom, the country’s telecoms regulator.

Ofcom’s findings put Britain ahead of Germany, France, Italy and Spain for “superfast” broadband in uptake, availability, and customer choice, saying that nine out of 100 households have access to internet speeds in excess of 30Mbps – better than Spain, in second place, with six out of 100.

The findings were published following Angela Merkel’s boasts to David Cameron’s at the CeBIT trade show earlier this week about Germany’s broadband capacity.

“As you will be aware, over the past few days there has been press commentary about the UK’s relative position in Europe when it comes to superfast broadband and 4G mobile networks,” wrote Ed Richards and Colette Brown, Ofcom’s chief executive and chairwoman, in an open letter to the government.

“We therefore thought it would be helpful to set out the latest data on the UK’s performance, which indicates that we are leading the main EU nations when it comes to superfast broadband and 4G network deployment.’’

As well as uptake of superfast broadband, the UK also boasted the greatest number of people accessing the internet each week (87 per cent) and the lowest proportion of people who have never used the internet – with just eight per cent of Britons never having logged on to the web.

The UK also comes either first or second in different measures of average price and either second or third in measures of the lowest available price.

Ofcom’s findings have been released on the 25 anniversary of the invention of the web by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, who first outlined rules for a system of “information management” back in 1989.