65% of UK Homes Now Online Comments

When I was at university, loads of my friends didn't have internet access at home because of the annoying 12 month contracts and the fact they could go on campus to get access. I see a similar situation with a number of professionals I know - they have internet access at work and when they get home they want to switch off, so don't have it at home. I don't think I know a single person who isn't affected by, or doesn't have access the internet on a semi-regular basis. It would interesting to see what the stats would be if you exclude everyone over 70.

Personally, I don't have a phone line, cable or internet in my home. But I have 3G on my phone and I borrow (with permission) my neighbours wireless. How would I have come out on the survey?

I rent, but I have internet set up. It's a 12 month contract, and a 12 month rental contract, so it works out ok.

I think that reducing the cost of decent speed broadband would help "spread the love". Introduction of a pay-as-you-go tarif, like they used to have with dial-up would help too. I think some people don't want to pay a fixed amount every month for something they would only use every so often.

Improving speeds would encourage those of us not living in built-up areas to consider a broadband connection something usefull, as opposed to a luxery.

I remember when I was at Uni. we had internet in our house simply because 2 out of 5 of us were geeks so we cabled the house and set up a homebuilt router, plus it only worked out to be a couple of quid a month from ntl (not Virgin back then) spread amongst five.

Also found in the ONS report is the statistic that "in the 35% of households with no access, there was an increase in the proportion that said they did not want the internet at home, from 3% in 2006 to 24% in 2008". Which I find quite interesting, and backs up the previous comment about people coming back from work and wanting to switch off.