New FSB report on state of the UK’s broadband infrastructure

New FSB report on state of the UK’s broadband infrastructure

The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) has published a report on the coverage and performance of broadband provision in the UK from the perspective of SMEs.

Calling broadband the fourth utility, the FSB said as many as 14% of small businesses consider a lack of reliable and fast broadband connectivity to be their main barrier to growth – with 45,000 firms on dial-up speeds.

In response to its findings, the FSB calls for universal ‘fit for purpose’ broadband for small firms with; a guarantee of advertised speeds, a high quality of service and symmetry between upload and download speeds.

In the short term this would involve prioritising the deployment of fibre connections to new and existing business parks as part of the current broadband rollout. Citing the plans of countries such as Finland and South Korea, the FSB also calls for a more ambitious long term national broadband strategy. This strategy would see an increase in the universal service commitment to 10 Mbps by 2018 and then to 100 Mbps by 2030, as well as reform of the broadband market.

The full report can be found here: http://www.fisp.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/FSB-The-Fourth-Utility-PAPERv02.pdf