The figures on Internet connectivity issued today by the Office of National Statistics (ONS) provide good news and bad news.

The good news is that broadband take-up is storming ahead and now accounts for almost two-thirds of all Net users in the UK (the actual figure is 64.2%). The bad news is that, while narrowband users have been upgrading to broadband, the overall number of the Net has virtually plateaued. Over the last year, there was a mere 5.6% increase in the total number of active subscriptions to the Internet and the ONS index actually decreased by 0.1% between November and December 2005. If you look at the ONS graph, it is clear that the total number of Net users has levelled off which has important public policy implications.

Many discussions about the Internet seem to assume that, in the industrialised countries at least, almost everyone is on the Net. In fact, this far from the case. Even in those countries with the greatest Internet penetration, about a quarter of homes are not online.

According to Internetworldstats.com, surprisingly Malta has the global lead with 78.3%. In second place, we find New Zealand where 77.6% use the Internet. The other members of the top five are Iceland (76.5%), Sweden (75.2%) and Hong Kong (70.7%). Even the high-tech United States only has 68.7 % online, while the broadband leader South Korea still only has 65.2 % of its population with some kind of Net connection. The same source gives UK penetration as 63.1 %.

My feeling is that the evidence now suggests that, left to market forces alone, Internet penetration is likely to level off and plateau at the 65-75% mark. If - as I believe - this has important implications for social, economic and political inclusion - then some kind of special effort is needed to encourage Net take-up by those sections of the community, usually poorer and older citizens, who are not coming online. This requires some innovative thinking and I’ve floated one idea in one of my columns.