The proportion of UK households with broadband is likely to almost double in three years, from 34% at the end of 2005 to 64% at the end of 2008. According to Point Topic's first spatial broadband forecasts, the installed base of broadband lines in the country will increase from 9.77mn to 18.46mn (including business lines), with the fastest growth happening in the remote rural areas.

"Our figures show how hugely successful broadband has been in the UK", points out Tim Johnson, Chief Executive of Point Topic. "Only three years ago, one analyst was forecasting that it would take until 2008 for broadband to reach 35% of British households. In fact, that milestone was passed last January", he says. "Another analyst said we would reach 8mn broadband households in 2008 - we think it's going to be twice that, more than 16mn households with broadband by the end of 2008."

Point Topic's study is unique because it makes estimates of broadband take-up available in geographical fine detail for the first time from a public source. It is based on individual forecasts for each of the 222,000 Census Output Areas in the UK, using Point Topic's series of consumer and business surveys, combined with the its BroadBand Layer model for the UK and a wide range of broadband statistics.

The forecast shows that the remote rural areas where penetration is lowest today will grow fastest and catch up with the rest of the country to some extent. But the highest take-up will continue to be in prosperous areas of the South East of England. Waverley (South-west Surrey) is forecast to be the area with the highest household take-up, with 91% of households on broadband.

Despite the high penetration levels achieved in some areas, the forecast points to a declining growth rate. "The market is getting much tougher", explains Tim Johnson. "The number of new broadband lines is going to fall from about 3.7mn this year to 2.2mn in 2008. The ISPs are going to have to fight much harder to keep their share of a shrinking market. They're going to be trying to take customers off each other rather than finding new ones."

Point Topic predicts it's going to become increasingly difficult to grow the market as well. "By 2008 the high take-up groups - better-off families, younger professionals - are going to be pretty well 100% on broadband. Getting older and poorer people fully online is going to be a lot more difficult, but it has to be done", adds Johnson. "The government and the local authorities are going to be pushing for it and spending money to try and make it happen. The ISPs which plug into that trend could well be the ones that grow fastest", he says.
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