It’s been announced that, for the first time, rural broadband installations across the UK have overtaken those in Urban areas, according to Ofcom.
The whole of the UK breaks down to 59 per cent of households in rural areas now have broadband compared to 57 per cent of urban areas.
The country by country breakdown shows more differences between regions. In England, 60 per cent of rural households have broadband, 2 per cent higher than in urban areas at 58 per cent. The gap is the same in Northern Ireland with 54 per cent of broadband households in rural areas and 52 per cent in urban areas. In Scotland, 59 per cent of rural households have broadband compared to 52 per cent of urban households.
The biggest difference is in Wales where 51 per cent of rural households have broadband, in contrast to 43 per cent of urban households.
What does this mean?
There’s no real analysis from Ofcom as to what has lead to this, or why this is now the case.
It may be due to a large number of people leaving cities to go and live in more remote locations, precisely because broadband connections allow them to carry out the same work function where ever they are.
Many rural areas have suffered patchy digital TV reception, leading many household to subscribe to Sky satellite TV. Given Sky’s keenness to encourage its TV subscribers to become broadband customers, this could be a factor.