Broadband Business Users – Ireland

ComReg has published today an interesting survey-based report on the trends around broadband usage by companies[1].

Some of the main findings:

(a) By mid-2006, 89% of businesses had access to the Internet (and, of those, 69% had a broadband access) with penetration levels highest among businesses in the Finance, Construction and Services Sectors, whilst Retail and Agriculture have the lowest penetration levels;

(b) Larger companies are more likely to be connected and businesses with between 1 and 9 employees have the lowest uptake of Internet services;

(c) The most common type of internet connection for SME was DSL (52% of the SME had a ADSL access) and, in the case of Corporates, a leased line or ADSL access (33% of Corporates had a dedicated leased line and 29% a ADSL access);

(d) The main reasons for not taking up broadband, especially for smaller businesses, were lack of relevance and lack of availability (albeit perceived lack of availability seemed to be higher than actual unavailability);

(e) The key benefits to those businesses using broadband included increased efficiencies and productivity, as well as time savings;

(f) Levels of switching between broadband suppliers were low among both SMEs (10%) and corporates (4%), since: (f1) the level of satisfaction with current providers is generally considered high; (f2) companies fear they will make a poor choice and that there will be a loss of service; (f3) the switching would consume time in exploring different options and choosing the best;

(g) Usage of voice services such as VoIP is relatively low within SMEs in Ireland.

[1] http://www.comreg.ie/_fileupload/publications/ComReg0723.pdf