The Communications Market: Nations and Regions - Research Report

Foreword

This survey is part of Ofcom’s Communications Market series of reports. It examines availability, take-up and consumption of communications services across the UK, exploring how citizen and consumer interests are being met and how this picture varies by each of the nations and regions.

We undertook this project to address stakeholder feedback that Ofcom’s work should take into consideration the differences between the nations and regions of the UK. The project is consistent with Ofcom’s duties to secure the availability of a wide range of electronic communications services throughout the UK, having regard to the different interests of people living in different parts of the UK and in rural and urban areas.

The survey considers the three basic communications platforms; telecoms (including telephone landlines and second and third generation mobile phones), internet (including broadband) and digital broadcasting (including digital TV and radio). It explores the key patterns for these services as they apply to availability, take-up and consumption across the UK, amongst consumers and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

Most of the data in the report was collated from research undertaken in the second half of 2005, including Ofcom’s residential tracking study, the Media Literacy Audit and operator data for mobile phone, digital subscriber line ( DSL) and cable coverage.

This report should be seen in the context of a series of complementary research surveys to be published by Ofcom during 2006. These include the Media Literacy Audit, (the main report was published in March 2006 and the supplementary report on media literacy in the nations and regions is being published alongside this report), reports on consumer and SME engagement with digital services and the annual Communications Market report, (all to be published later in the year).

We believe that this report will provide a valuable resource for Ofcom, national, regional and local government and other stakeholders, to tailor their approach to national and regional differences in availability, take-up and consumption of communications services. A series of Rural, Regional and Remote seminars in the nations and regions will be held shortly after publication so they can be used as a forum for discussion of the research findings. Ofcom will then publish a final report which will assess the implications of the research findings on current and planned Ofcom work and, where appropriate, make recommendations.

It is our intention that the nations and regions survey should be repeated on a regular basis and supplemented, where appropriate, by further UK-wide research amongst ethnic minorities, disability groups and key age and socio-economic groups.

The full document is available below