Making sure customers reap the benefits from broadband

The UK has developed a taste for broadband over the past year. We now have approximately 3 million broadband users and the adoption rate is continuing to accelerate. But what's it all for? Over the last year the Broadband Stakeholder Group, has worked with iSociety to look at how consumers extract benefit and value from their broadband connections.

The BSG supported iSociety report 'Fat Pipes Connected People', provides an insight into the way broadband is being integrated in the home. Broadband opens up new opportunities for communication and creative interaction and the report highlights the triggers that lead consumers to adopt broadband, adapt to the possibilities that it provides and absorb broadband habits into their daily lives.

This isn't a seamless process. In a nascent market, where media content applications and services are not yet well developed, the extent to which consumers derive additional value from broadband is influenced by a range of factors. Broadband is often highly social. Community-based applications such as e-bay feature highly in the shared everyday experience of broadband families and friends and users rely heavily on personal networks for tips on new things to do as well as technical support when things go wrong. In a broadband world it's still who you know that counts.

All the data suggests that very few users are willing to give up broadband once they've tasted it, However, its clear that there are real concerns about 'dark side' of the internet, including spam, security and access to effective support when things go wrong and that these concerns could hold back subscriber growth.

In the wake of a summer of viruses, informing new users about the straight forward precautions they need to take to protect themselves online is starting to look mission critical. Whilst much is being done by ISPs and others, new users are ofetn naive about the internet, apathetic about some of the risks and cynical about ISPs telling them what to do - creating a complex communications challenge for the industry. Nevertheless, there is clearly scope for innovation and product differentiation in this area. ISPs that build a reputation for providing quality services and effective customer support are likely to succeed in a sector with strong potential for viral promotion.