Oftel is continuing to conduct quarterly surveys amongst UK residential consumers and SMEs (small and medium enterprises employing up to 500 staff). The purpose of these ongoing studies is to provide Oftel and external stakeholders with an up-to-date and comprehensive understanding of consumer behaviour in the telecoms market, which can be fed into policy work.

Click here to see the reports from the most recent surveys conducted in February 2001.

The key findings from these reports include:

Fixed Lines

• The proportion of homes using just a fixed line phone continues to drop, now less than a quarter, while an increasing proportion have both fixed and mobile (70%). 16% of UK adults now consider their mobile phone to be their main method of making and receiving calls.
• Both residential and business consumers are making use of alternative fixed telecom suppliers. 10% of UK homes have changed fixed supplier in the past 12 months. 42% of medium and 19% of small businesses have also switched at some point.
• Whilst the majority of businesses found the actual switching process easy, a large proportion expressed some difficulty in comparing suppliers’ prices and quality of service. This seemed particularly common among those businesses using a range of services such as Internet.

Internet

• Home Internet access continues to grow. 34% of UK homes now claim to be connected, a rise of 1 million since November 2000. This includes an increasing number of older consumers as well as lower income homes. A further 15% of UK homes think they are likely to be connected to the Internet at home within the next year.
• Digital TV is also becoming increasingly popular as a means to Internet access with 5% of Internet homes now using this method of connecting.
• Internet takeup is continuing to rise amongst small and medium sized UK businesses. 60% are already connected with a further 15% likely to connect in the next 12 months. On the whole businesses seem to be making use of the fairly wide range of ISPs, packages, and connection methods available to them.
• Less than 1% of consumers have signed up to ADSL technology in the last 12 months, although significantly higher proportions of residential consumers expressed interest in using it in the future.
• Overall, general satisfaction with the Internet remains high amongst both businesses and residential consumers (90% in each).
• Use of unmetered packages in Internet homes continues to grow with 35% currently claiming to use fully or partially unmetered packages. The level of businesses using these packages has remained fairly constant at 26%, but was considerably more popular amongst medium sized businesses (40%).

Mobile

• 67% of UK adults claim to have a mobile. By February 2001, 69% of small and 90% of medium businesses also owned at least one mobile phone.
• Gradually WAP phones are becoming more popular amongst small and medium businesses with 10% now claiming to use them for Internet access and e-mail services.
• The use of pre-paid mobile packages is still growing amongst UK residential customers. ‘Pay as you go’ and ‘all in one’ packages are currently favoured by almost 8 in 10 people and particularly in mobile-only homes.
• The majority of customers are satisfied overall with mobile services. Areas of dissatisfaction include the price of calls to mobiles and the cost of international calls. Both of these issues are currently being addressed in Oftel’s effective competition market reviews.

The fifth quarterly UK residential and SME surveys will be published on Oftel’s website during July 2001.

For further information on Oftel’s consumer research programme, please contact Lisa Etwell (tel: 020 7634 8741 / e-mail lisa.etwell@oftel.gov.uk).