Internet-penetration in Europe

How far, how much? broadband getting popular?

[Rumbas]

Fellow WebmasterWorld'ers, I need your help concerning the Internet-situation today in Europe.

I'm researching data for a large website project, and before we just go ahead and build a lot of language specific websites that needs a backbone connection to load (that's what the designers would love), we need to know a bit of the penetration here. Basically I need valid stats/numbers on:

Percentage of households that has either 56K, ISDN, ADSL or higher in these countries:
DK, SE, NO, NL, BE, CH, DE, RU, UKR

Furthermore I need to get a fix on the connection situation on the European education institutions. What is the deal here? Has every school, university etc. high speed broadband connections?

The project targets young people (13-25), so therefore the education-numbers are quite crusial to me.

I have an idea, but the numbers are quite old.

So search experts and stat freaks, what can you dig up out there?
The best 'researcher' will earn her/himself a few cold ones at Pubcon - THANKS! :)

[Rumbas]

Heini wrote in the Belgium forum [webmasterworld.com]

over 600.000 adsl connections a top online country in Europe

See that's what we need here. Data.

Care to share a source or two?

[Black Knight]

Levels of just how broad broadband really is varies from country to country too. In the UK, Broadband is 512K, while in both Italy and Sweden for instance, some ISPs are offering 10Mb broadband through extensive fibre-optic cabling. The UK just doesn't have the capacity and spread of fibre-optic infrastructure yet to power such higher bandwidth supply.

The UK actually offered the slowest actual broadband performance in all of Western Europe on the last study I read about 8 months ago.

Broadband is on the rise however, and will reach critical mass eventually. For broadband, critical mass is when everyone knows someone they envy for having it, and get it themselves to "Keep up with the Jones's". :)

The last study I read put the UK at 28% for broadband access, meaning just 28% of the online population of the UK have broadband. That could still mean as many as 10 million people of course.

[brotherhood of LAN]

here [webmasterworld.com] is a WW thread about recently published UK stats.

/added

UKR = not UK? :)

[Damian]

On this page you'll find a graph titled

Penetration of broadband connections in Western Europe by service type at September 2001 [research.analysys.com]

As you can tell from the title it's rather old info, but maybe it helps.

[stever]

Or try here [etcnewmedia.com] for a European overview.

[heini]

Say Stever, that's a very good resource site, slipped by me so far. Thanks!
It neatly summarizes stats and sources from all the different places I use too visit.
The site is a property of the ETC, EUROPEAN TRAVEL COMMISSION.

[Rumbas]

Very nice! Thanks guys, just keep the info comming :)

Here's another good source [europemedia.net] of Broadband popularity in Europe from Europemedia.

>UKR = UK?

No BOL, that would be Ukraine :)

[vitaplease]

stever, very nice find from ETC - and amazing usage differences per country:

snippet:

For example, 76% of young people in the Netherlands use the Internet once a week or more often, but only 20% of young people in Greece do so. Internet use by young people is high across Northern Europe, but the proportions going online regularly are lower the further south you go

from Markets by country ETC newmedia [etcnewmedia.com]

[caine]

Excellant find stever, had a descent hunt around it, interesting to see how low, UK's cable/adsl usage was.

Flagging this one.

[stever]

Yes, the phrase two-speed Europe really comes into play with internet access. And the differences are getting bigger as the demand for faster and affordable connections is fuelled by the faster connections themselves (we are supposed to be able to get new fast (and portable) access through the electricity socket sometime this year).

[luma]

Here's another source about German internet user and usage [w3b.org] (in German). Since the data is based on 94.193 questionaires, it should be quite accurate. You should be able to get the complete study with answers to more of your questions.

Always remember statistics are quite tricky. Have a look at the "Altersverteilung der Internet-Nutzer" (age groups) on above page:

17.2% 50 years and older
21.6% 40 to 49 years
30.6% 30 to 39 years
24.7% 20 to 29 years
5.9% 19 years and younger
--------------------------
100,0% total

and compare it with New Media's "specific age groups who are Internet users":

71% of people under 20 are Internet users,
76% of people aged 20 to 29,
59% of people aged 30 to 39,
39% of people aged 40 to 59,
and 7% of people aged 60 or above are online.

So even though 71% of people under 20 are Internet users, these are only approx. 5.9 % of the total "Internet population" in Germany.

Again, be careful with these statistics!

[Mikkel Svendsen]

vitaplease, maybe new laws like this (see link to article below) will help the younger generation in Greece to get a more close relationship with modern technology :)

Use a Game Boy in Greece, go to jail [msnbc.com]

[Mikkel Svendsen]

Not to mention the "possitive" effect this one must have on the Chineese people :)

China blocks Google search engine [msnbc.com]

[heini]

>amazing usage differences per country

very much so. A major factor in this is - besides average income figures - the degree to which the european societies have been encompassing the internet.

Some smaller countries have taken the lead here, mainly Netherlands and Scandinavia.
In Norway for example buying private PCs is supported by employers.
Schools: the priority given to equipping classrooms with PCs goes a long way to promoting the internet awareness among the younger generation.

Another main factor is the technical infrastructure.

The lagging behind of Spain, one of the large european countries can be explained for the most parts just by shortcomings in those two factors.