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Home businesses mushroom on back of 17 percent rise in broadband in 2009

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Home businesses mushroom on back of 17 percent rise in broadband in 2009

Press Release: London, 3 September 2009 – Statistics released last week show 17 percent increase in households with access to broadband in 2009 compared with 2008, which is fuelling the rapid rise of UK home businesses says PeoplePerHour.com.

Last week, the Office for National Statistics released the annual Internet Access report. The report finds that 63 percent of all UK households (16.5 million) had a broadband internet connection in 2009, an increase from 56 percent in 2008. The number of all households with broadband has increased by 6.6 million since 2006.

The growth of broadband is credited with changing the leisure and working habits of the nation. The rise of social networking websites like Facebook, for example, is well-documented. Less dramatic, but perhaps more significant, is the way broadband internet is empowering people to setup and run small businesses from home.

Since January 2009, the online marketplace for professional services PeoplePerHour.com has grown from 19000 registered members to in excess of 40000 today, as increasing numbers of people choose to setup small enterprises from their broadband-connected bedrooms, lofts and garden sheds.

According to a report published by Enterprise Nation in association with British Telecom, in 2008 there were 2.5 million businesses operating from home – a 16 percent rise compared with 2007. The surge in the numbers of Britons choosing to become self-employed has led PeoplePerHour.com to speculate that as many as one in five people in the UK will be running businesses from home by 2015.

The rise of broadband has enabled businesses to be setup from home quickly and cheaply, says PeoplePerHour.com founder Xenios Thrasyvoulou. “The internet has fuelled entrepreneurship in the UK by giving startup businesses cheap and fast access to all the resources required to get a business off the ground,” he says. “Home businesses can flourish online, with virtually no startup capital required. Broadband is revolutionising the small business landscape.” 

For further information, photos, interviews and case studies, please contact:

Sami McCabe
t: +44 (0) 20 3393 8277
m: +44 (0) 7789 777 440
e:  sami@ubiquitycomms.com

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PeoplePerHour.com Background Information

PeoplePerHour.com was founded in 2007 by two Cambridge University graduates: Xenios Thrasyvoulou and Simos Kitiris.

The company is funded by its founders and a group of prominent angel investors who are active in the internet space.

Typical PeoplePerHour.com buyers run a small businesses (usually less than 20 people) including boutique financial firms, internet companies, property and PR agencies amongst many others.