Divided we stand, together we fall

A hunger for online shopping, internet banking, online entertainment and email has given rural Britain the lead in the race to install broadband, with the number of homes with high-speed connections in isolated areas overtaking those in urban areas for the first time.

Having lagged behind big cities for years, the countryside is now better connected. Some 59% of households in rural areas have broadband, compared with 57% of urban areas, according to a survey into television, radio, internet and telecoms habits by media watchdog Ofcom.

Sunderland emerges as the UK's digital capital, with the highest percentage of homes with both multichannel TV and broadband access. Although the city council said this was down to local education projects, others said it could be linked to consistently poor weather.

Ofcom said the findings were unexpected, and signalled the end of fears of a "digital divide" between the countryside and built-up areas. "Initial broadband take-up was typically by young urban homes, which is similar to the take-up of many new technologies," said Ofcom's strategy and market developments partner, Peter Phillips. "I don't think anyone would have predicted two or three years ago that we would have seen the picture that we can see today.

"If you look back two or three years, rural areas were well behind where urban areas were in terms of broadband take-up and that was driven by a number of factors: the number of broadband enabled exchanges was much higher in urban areas, the number of exchanges which allowed competition ... was much higher in urban areas than in rural ones."

The report suggested much of the demand in rural areas was driven by the need for online shopping, banking and communication.

Ofcom said buying goods online was more popular in rural areas without well-stocked high streets than in urban areas "for obvious reasons of convenience".

"In total, about three-quarters of rural internet users say they use the internet for transactions as well as for information whereas for the UK as a whole it's lower than that, it's about 69%," said Phillips.

Those in rural areas are also more likely to watch films or television online, because other forms of entertainment such as live music, theatre and cinema were not available.