Broadband Britain - See the Local Story

LONDON - A new website will help local government and community activists to get
better broadband services in their areas. They will be able to use it to
identify local needs and develop the strategies to bring “superband” speeds
to the whole UK.

Visitors to the Point Topic “BroadBand Geography” site will be able to
click on a map of the UK and see how much broadband there is in each of the
12 government regions and nations and the 434 local authority areas.

For every one of these areas the site shows the number of consumer and
business broadband lines, the take-up of broadband per household and per head
of population, and the proportion of homes in the area which can get the
higher broadband speeds.

The site dynamically calculates and displays the data as colour-coded
maps, bar charts or straightforward numerical tables. Users can click easily
between different views and geographies to explore the features of each area
and how it compares with its neighbours and competitors.

A development version of the site is online now, accessible to anyone who
registers, at pointtopic.gavurin.com/public. It has been created by
broadband specialists Point Topic working with Gavurin, pioneers of the
dynamic analysis of business intelligence. Point Topic has been collecting
and organising broadband data in the UK and worldwide since 1998. Gavurin’s
agile new G-View website is able to present the results more quickly and
flexibly than ever before.

“What this means is that anyone can easily see how good the broadband
coverage is in their area,” explains Tim Johnson, Chief Analyst at point
Topic. “The Digital Britain report from Lord Carter suggests there should be
a target of at least two meg broadband for everyone. “You can look at the
BroadBand Geography site and see how close that is where you live.”

The full detail of the Point Topic data goes right down to the 1.7
million postcodes in the UK, and the 220,000 output areas used for the 2001
Census. Professional users, accessing the full database, can use G-View to
look at how broadband take-up and performance varies right down to the output
area level.

“Point Topic has been producing detailed geographical data about
broadband since 2005 but up to now it has been buried in spreadsheets,” says
Johnson. “By using the G-View site broadband planners, investors and policy
makers will be able to access the data they need, in a form they can use,
within seconds.”

The target of 2Mbps for everyone is unlikely to be achieved through the
workings of market forces alone. Broadband providers will naturally focus on
the big urban areas where there is the best chance of a return, as the early
plans for BT ’s fibre-to-the-cabinet service already show. People in less
well-served areas will have to campaign to get the services they need.

“Karl Marx said that it’s all very well interpreting the world but the
important thing is to change it,” remarks Johnson. “This website we’ve done
with Gavurin will help people to grasp the facts about broadband and use them
to change our world in future.”

Point Topic is an analyst company focusing entirely on broadband. Point
Topic’s international services have a global reputation for providing the
most up-to-date and authoritative user statistics, supplier profiles and
applications reports on DSL, FTTx, cable and other broadband services
worldwide.

Point Topic, reg. in England 3503830. 61 Gray’s Inn Road, London WC1X
8TL.

About Point Topic

www.point-topic.com

Source: Point Topic Ltd

For more information please contact: Point Topic: Oliver Johnson, Email: oliver at point-topic.com, Tel. +44(0)20-3301-3303