Fibre 'to reach 4m by 2013'

More than four million households and companies in the UK will have high-speed fibre broadband by 2013, according to a new forecast.

Broadband analyst Point Topic predicts that 20 per cent of the expected 22 million broadband connections in the UK in five years will be fibre-based.

In terms of other technologies, the current favourite, basic DSL, will lose its share of 78 per cent of the market and drop to 57 per cent, while cable will continue to hold on to just under a quarter (23 per cent), due to the high speeds it is beginning to offer.

The company's chief analyst, Tim Johnson, admitted that there was controversy over whether consumers will want high-speed access.

"I think they will, because they will be attracted by the offer of one single converged service, not lots of separate ones," he said.

"People will be able to mix video telephony, TV, audio, online games and virtual worlds, all high quality and high resolution, into the total experience they want at that moment."

BT's chief executive, Ian Livingstone, wrote in the Daily Telegraph last month that companies investing in super-fast broadband must be able to make a "reasonable return".