Monthly usage by UK broadband users
ISP Review conducts monthly user poll which throws vast amount of light on the trend of broadband technologies and the internet habits of UK population. Currently, more than sixty percent of UK households have broadband connections and majority of them get them via ADSL or cable. With broadband needs are becoming varied, new and emerging technologies like 3G mobile technologies and FTTH networks are seen as best solutions to cater various needs of broadband users.
However, the usage allowance specified by the ISP with every package often restricts or allows the users to explore web world where some of the programs consume huge amounts of bandwidth. For instance, downloading music or video or watching IPTV services gobble up data in GBs while P2P programmes will do the same for the customers. Many people choose unlimited broadband packages or high level packages with 30 or 40 GB monthly usage allowance and this helps the heavy users to see that the monthly cost does not shoot up once the monthly download limit is breached.
The recent poll from ISPreview shows that 33 percent of the respondents of its survey used to download over 40 GB per month. Among the light users, 2.9 percent of the respondents downloaded less than 1 GB during a month. One-fifth of the users downloaded between 1 and 5 GB while 12 percent of the users used to download up to 10 GB during a month.
As unlimited broadband packages allow users to download as much as they can during off-peak hours, heavy users should have taken these packages to reduce the monthly cost. However, using high bandwidth also involves spending lots of time online that not many people can do.
