Westminsterhas once again come under fire for being trapped “in a time warp” over itsplans for a 2Mbps universal broadband service.
The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) said the government’splans, originally outlined in the Digital Britain report, lacked ambition. Afibre optic-based infrastructure could push broadband speeds over 100Mbps, buteven with the most advanced technology behind it, copper can’t get much beyond50.
It warned that SMEs, particularly those outside majorcities, were in danger of being left behind.
“More than half of small businesses rely on the Internet forup to 50% of their annual turnover, yet simple tasks are time-consuming becausebroadband speeds are letting them down,” said FSB national chairman JohnWright.
Hosted ICT provider Outsourcery, which runs Microsoftsolutions from its own data centres, called for the government to get on withthe job of upgrading the infrastructure, and accused Westminster of “tinkering” with the nationalnetwork instead of trying to solve the underlying issues.
“The UKis using arcane technology; the nation’s copper infrastructure desperatelyneeds to be upgraded to fibre optic in order to satisfy businesses’requirements,” said product strategy and development director Mark Seemann.
Join the conversationComment
Share
Comments
Results
Contribute to the conversation