Telia Survey Maps Small-Business Broadband Needs

STOCKHOLM, Sweden, May 2 -- Eighty percent of Sweden/s 800,000 small businesses are connected to the Internet, and most of these companies are still connected via modem, although half said they will need broadband in the next 18 months, reveals a survey conducted by TEMO for Swedish telecommunications company Telia.

The survey included 1,001 small businesses with up to nine employees. More than half of the interviewed companies had one to two workstations with Internet access. The majority had sales in excess of SEK 1 million.

Today, 80 percent of Sweden/s small businesses are connected to the Internet. Two out of ten have broadband access, and the majority have ADSL. Among companies without broadband access, six out of ten are connected via modem and two out of ten have ISDN. Eight out of ten small companies are aware that they can get ADSL, but only three of ten replied spontaneously that they knew.

"Small companies in Sweden are keeping up rather well with broadband developments," said Indra Asander, head of the Telia Internet Services business area. "But we see a small gap between small companies and large enterprises. Here it is important to raise the level of Internet maturity in the long term, so that the competitiveness of small businesses is not weakened."

Compared with the average small business, there is a higher percentage of ADSL connections in southwestSweden, northern Lapland and in the major cities of Gothenburg, Malmo and Stockholm. Small companies in these areas are also a little more knowledgeable about ADSL than in the rest of Swedenm, Telia said.