Fibre broadband essential to businesses

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are still being hampered by their inability to access high-speed, low contention broadband, according to a new report.

The government’s Small Business Service claims that SMEs make up 97% of the British economy. For them, particularly those in rural areas, the accessibility of broadband is more of a luxury than the necessity it has now become.

The government has pledged to provide a universal broadband service by 2012, with a minimum speed of 2Mbs. The Federation of Small Businesses has accused the government of being in a “time warp” with regards to these plans, saying they lack ambition.

It is claimed that the plans to increase speeds do not go far enough, as they do not address the underlying issue, which is that the UK is building its broadband network on archaic technology.

The nation’s copper infrastructure is not capable of providing speeds of much more than 50Mbps, and it is argued that an upgrade to fibre optic networks is needed in order to satisfy businesses’ requirements both now and in future.

A change to fibre optic network would bring speeds today to100Mbps per customer, allowing for the most advanced business applications, such as high definition video conferencing and streaming complex software over the internet.

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