The U.K. saw growing availability and take-up of superfast broadband,...

100 percent of premises now have current-generation broadband, with overall adoption of fixed broadband services at around 71 percent, it said. The government has committed to ensuring that by 2015 almost all premises will have access to a basic broadband service of at least 2 Mbps, through the universal service commitment (USC), it said. The significant progress on that goal over the past year is expected to continue, it said. Ten percent of U.K. connections had fixed broadband speeds of less than 2 Mbps this year, an improvement on the 14 percent recorded last year, it said. In addition, many consumers now have the option to switch to superfast services to boost their speeds, and others would have better speeds if they addressed in-home wiring issues. However, broadband speeds “seem to be a significant constraint on how much data consumers can use on the internet,” Ofcom said. The amount of data downloaded and uploaded increases steadily as broadband speeds rise, up to around 8 Mbps, at which point it remains essentially the same until speeds are reached where “superfast” services are used, it said. This is likely caused by consumers with broadband speeds of a few Mbps being deterred from using data-hungry services such as high-definition Internet TV. It may be appropriate to consider increasing the USC, it said. Superfast fixed broadband is now available from commercial providers to 65 percent of U.K. premises, with 7 percent of homes and businesses using such services, it said. Average broadband speeds are rising as a result of the adoption of superfast broadband, with the average now at 12.7 Mbps, up from 7.5 Mbps recorded in 2011, it said. Mobile data use is also on the upswing, with total data volumes more than doubling over the past year, Ofcom said. The commercial launch of 4G services will likely accelerate this trend further, it said. Mobile broadband coverage also improved since 2011, with fewer premises stuck in 3G “not-spots,” it said. But around 0.3 percent of households still can’t get mobile coverage even for voice services, while over 6 percent are in “partial not-spots,” it said. Many homes are using femtocells to boost their in-home coverage, it said. Digital switchover quietly ended Oct. 24, giving virtually every U.K. home access to digital TV, radio and interactive services, it said. Meanwhile, digital audio broadcasting radio continued to grow. Ofcom published updated interactive maps at http://maps.ofcom.org.uk with more detailed data on coverage of fixed and mobile networks around the country, and has also made available information on the availability of superfast broadband across the U.K. and the current speeds received.