The delivery of broadband – enabling the provision of fast always-on Internet access and advanced interactive services to consumers and small businesses – has been identified as a key priority of Governments in the UK and EU over the coming years.

Oftel is playing an active role in setting the regulatory framework for the broadband market, and is working closely with Industry to pre-empt and resolve disputes. Delivering a competitive broadband market – Oftel's regulatory strategy for broadband, December 2001, sets out Oftel’s objectives to create a competitive broadband market, and the existing and planned initiatives that should contribute to achieving Oftel’s objectives.

This research was commissioned to help ensure that Oftel’s decisions are based on an accurate assessment of the level of competition in the market and demand from competitors, consumers and businesses for various services.

The UK has one of the most competitive marketplaces in Europe for broadband, with competition at the infrastructure level between cable modem providers and digital subscriber line (DSL), and numerous service providers competing with BT to provide retail DSL services to consumers. There is also some limited provision by fixed radio that, together with mobile radio and satellite technologies, should in future also be able to deliver broadband services more widely.

Take-up of broadband in the UK is still low, but is growing substantially with an increase of over 500% of users during 2001. There are currently over 139,000 ADSL end-users and 196,000 cable modem end-users in the UK. Around 3% of UK homes with Internet access use broadband.