New figures show the UK as the sixth largest country for broadband

Recently released figure by the Broadband Forum has shown that the by the end of the first quarter of 2009 the UK now has a total of 17.7 million broadband users following over a million new customers signing up for broadband services in the last year.

This figure compares to the 16.3 million broadband users throughout the country at the same time last year and places the UK in sixth place on the global broadband league table.

Even though this is a huge achievement when considering the economic climate over the last year and means that the UK is still one of the biggest markets for broadband services in the world at has still fallen just short of fifth place as this year saw France break the 18 million barrier for broadband customers.

The number of broadband connection globally currently stands at 492.2 million, of which 64.6 percent of these lines are DSL broadband connection, according to the data collated by research company, Point Topic.

The research also pointed to the fact that out of all the regions throughout the world Western Europe currently had the largest market for broadband services, with growth through this area currently being driven primarily by the uptake of IPTV services.

Other than the huge community of DSL users, which accounts for three quarters of all connections, there are also 20.6 percent of users connecting over cable broadband. Users of fibre optic broadband account for 12.4 percent and 1.3 percent of global connections are currently mobile broadband.

In order to improve broadband accessibility in the UK the government is currently pushing hard for universal broadband access and in the recently released final Digital Britain report it has announce the availability of £200 million in funding and a number of measures that it will be implementing in order to make broadband available to everyone.