A decade of broadband celebrated in the UK

The innovative technology that many of us take for granted these days, which is broadband, is now celebrating its tenth birthday in the UK.

Just a decade ago many people had never heard of broadband, and a vast number of households had no access to the Internet at all. However, broadband technology is now celebrating its tenth birthday in the UK, and over the past decade has gone from being a new and possibly daunting new technology to become a household necessity that many of us simply couldn’t imagine being without.

Before broadband was launched in the UK many households had no Internet access at all, and those that did have the luxury of access to the Internet were on very slow dial up connections that were costly, time consuming, and frustrating to use. However, after its launch broadband quickly became popular and widespread amongst both businesses and households, and these days most of us could no more imagine being without our broadband service than being without gas and electricity.

However, whilst broadband has come a long way and has become widespread in the UK, there is still a digital divide that the government and industry officials are trying to address. Whilst it is thought that around ninety nine percent of the UK can connect to the Internet via broadband some are receiving extremely slow speeds. For those that are on the very slow speeds, officials state that it can feel as though they are still using the frustrating dial up service that was commonly used in the days before broadband.

However, as one industry official pointed out in the past ten years broadband has gone from being an expensive novelty to becoming an affordable necessity for many people. Tim Johnson, Chief Analyst at Point Topic, said: “The vision of the people who launched broadband has been pretty well fulfilled. In just 10 years high speed internet access has gone from novelty to necessity for millions of families.”