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At 20,000 connections a week, the level of broadband growth is currently outstripping the equivalent demand for mobile phones and dial-up Internet connections when they were first introduced.
Douglas Alexander, the Minister for E-Commerce, said: "The UK now has some of the cheapest Internet prices in the world for both narrowband and broadband. As a result, the number of people signing up to broadband is accelerating.
"The milestone of half a million connections represents a 54 percent increase since the beginning of 2002. Of course there is more to do, but the work of building Broadband Britain is underway."
David Edmonds, Director General of Telecommunications, said the figure of broadband connections was even higher than the 500,000 figure as it doesn't take into account cable operators' connection figures for March and April.
He added: "Where many consumers in Europe rely on the incumbent for broadband services, UK consumers are choosing from a number of different networks and service providers.
"Over 10 million homes use the traditional dial-up Internet access, including four million with unmetered packages.
"I am confident that more Internet users will take up high speed broadband as the range of services increases and prices fall."
However, Nigel Moulton, Marketing Director of Cisco Systems, has criticised the Government's handling of the broadband roll-out in comparison with other European countries.
He argues the UK is concentrating on slower technology such as ADSL and cable modems whilst ignoring funding from the European Union used by countries such as France and Ireland to fund the building of high-speed Ethernet bridges between major cities, which is leading to a higher take-up of cheaper broadband services.
He said: "I'm not sure the UK Government has a co-ordinated approach to applying for EU funding and as a result other countries will be able to provide broadband at a cheaper rate.
"In Italy, internet service provider FastWeb is delivering high-speed access to apartment blocks in Milan. As well as offering customers 20 times the speed of current ADSL services, it also offers low cost internet telephony and video-on-demand for a monthly fee of around £13."
In the same week as OFTEL's announcement, a Communications report published by the parliamentary Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee called on the Government for regulatory action to separate BT's networking business from BT's central administration.
The case for the division of BT's networking section has been put forward by the company's broadband competitors who say broadband prices would most likely fall further if a third party owned BT's fixed-line network. They also believe the move would provide a boost to local-loop unbundling, the main barrier to widespread UK broadband availability.
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Richard Powell, Shout99
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