90% of European broadband users are ready for a “connected life”

December 14, 2007 – New research from Cisco Internet Business Solutions Group (IBSG) has found that broadband users in Western Europe may be even more interested in living “the connected life” than those in the US, with many willing to pay for such a service.

The Cisco IBSG Connected Consumer study found that 90% of European broadband users reported an interest in a connected life service, compared to 77% in the US.  Additionally, 42% of European broadband users are willing to pay €3.50 per month to enable easy management of and access to their household digital content, anytime and anywhere.  Researchers canvassed the views of 1,500 broadband users in the UK, France, Spain, Italy and Germany to obtain the findings.

“It is clear that European consumers are changing the way they live and play,” said Simon Aspinall, Managing Director, Service Provider, Cisco IBSG.  “They are carrying laptops, PDAs and mobile phones as productivity tools and MP3 players for listening to music, whilst using wireless networks to stay connected.  Europeans are also adopting these advanced technologies and new media applications even faster than US consumers.  As Web 2.0 offers more open and collaborative technologies, the demand from European consumers for ground-breaking connected solutions has now reached a critical mass.”

The research also found that there is an increased reliance on the Internet for video entertainment purposes, with the average Western European broadband consumer now spending an average of 21 hours a week on the Internet, as compared to only 11 hours a week watching television, and 69% downloaded or watched a video from the Internet in the past month.  Nearly 12% of European broadband users view television and video on the go outside the home, and 23% named video as the content they most want to access whilst away from the home.

Scott A Puopolo, Vice President, Group Head, Service Provider, Cisco IBSG, commented: “We believe that video is on the cusp of becoming more important, and people are going to invent new ways of using, editing, interacting and even collaborating with it.  As all content effectively becomes available and manageable via multiple devices using the network, they will also expect a truly connected solution, where everything successfully ‘talks’ to each other.  Consumers are ready for this enhanced way of distributing, viewing and collaborating with video.”