Regional accents

Ofcom's survey of use of communications channels across the UK reveals that 28 texts are sent for every 20 mobile phone calls in the UK, with the exception of London where mobile voice calls exceed texting. People in Northern Ireland and the East Midlands send the most texts. Hard to propose explanations here! In Scotland, Yorkshire and the Humber, uptake of landlines is lower than the national average (91%) with people relying on mobiles.

Internet take up is higher in rural areas than in urban area, with Scotland showing the highest access to (though not necessarily uptake of) broadband.

While London has the highest spend on communications, as a proportion of household income, that spend is relatively low compared to the nation as a whole (with Wales and Northern Ireland spending the highest proportion).

What do these data (and all the other data from the survey) add up to? At minimum that business decisions made on the basis of London-based focus groups might be a little shakey.