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Superfast broadband

29/09/2011
The switch is inevitable, but users today still need a good reason to change over
Ultrafast Broadband Survey



IDATE announces the publication of its “Superfast Broadband Survey: Understanding consumers’ switching patterns” market report. Drawing on the results of an exclusive international survey, and an analysis of multimedia equipment and internet usage levels, this report allows readers to deepen their understanding of the current mechanisms, drivers and obstacles that are shaping the rate at which residential users are switching to superfast broadband.

“We decided to conduct this survey,” explains project leader, Valerie Chaillou, “because we wanted to obtain a detailed analysis of the drivers and obstacles that explain the rate at which consumers are switching over to new superfast broadband solutions, using four markets with varying degrees of maturity as our examples, namely France, Sweden, the United States and Japan.”
•    France lags behind in terms of both coverage and penetration, which stood at 21% and 8%, respectively, at the end of 2010.
•    Roughly 40% penetration in Japan, Sweden and the United States, and corresponding coverage of between 30% and 90% of the population.
•    The fact that rollouts began earlier in these three countries explains to some degree why France lags

The following trends can be extracted from the survey’s results:
•    The most significant variables are tied more to location (degree of urbanisation, type of housing) than to the features of the household (size, age, presence of children, etc.). Here, socio-economic criteria appear to have less of an impact on the likelihood of having a superfast broadband connection than they did in the early days of the Web.
•    Excess amount of equipment more in the realm of computers than TV/video among superfast BB households, except in the United States where there tends to be an excess of all types of multimedia equipment.
•    Notable variances in consumption levels for the most innovative applications in superfast BB households (see graph below).
•    Switchover driven by a desire for more bandwidth. Reasons cited for switching are tied either to uses (especially TV/video), or driven by an event or opportunity (arrival of superfast broadband, moving house, special offers, etc.).
•    Superfast broadband households are no more proactive than regular broadband households. But it is only in the United States, and in Sweden to a lesser degree, that marketing currently plays significant role in persuading users to switch – with 30% and 22% of superfast broadband households having signed up as a result of a marketing campaign.
•    Half of all subscribers change providers when switching to a superfast solution, and this regardless of how mature the market is.
•    The main obstacles to switching are clearly expected prices and users’ satisfaction with their existing connection. Both of which mean that providers need to step up their marketing efforts.
•    But 60% of the non-superfast broadband households polled say that switching to this new form of access is inevitable over the long term.

Superfast broadband survey methodology

Geographical scope: France, Sweden, Japan, USA

Survey target: Internet households

Protocol:
•    Online survey based on a proprietary Harris Interactive panel representative of the online population
•    Sample of superfast broadband households (minimum 100 superfast broadband households/country)
•    Size of the sample: 400 to 500 interviews conducted in each country, for a total 1,760 interviews.
•    Survey conducted in: May/June 2011

Results processing: Adjustments taking into consideration the oversampling of superfast broadband households
Straight tab and multivariate breakdown (superfast broadband households vs. other households)

Valérie Chaillou   
Senior Consultant, IDATE

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