Home  Sector IT & E-business Digital Britain plans “atrociously under-ambitious”
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Digital Britain plans “atrociously under-ambitious” |
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It was meant to act as a guide for taking Britain to the forefront of the digital revolution, instead, the Government’s Digital Britain Report has been overwhelmingly criticised as under-ambitious and limp for the Scottish business community.
John Wright, national chairman Federation of Small Businesses, said that while the FSB welcomed the Government’s commitment to ensuring universal access to fast broadband, he warned the expected 2mbps by 2012 lacks ambition and showed the UK is stuck in a time-warp.
He said: “Research by the FSB shows that a third of small businesses already have 2mbps broadband speed, yet struggle to do core, day-to-day business activities. More than half of small businesses rely on the internet for up to 50 per cent of their annual turnover, yet simple tasks such as emailing, marketing, buying and selling, are time-consuming because their broadband speeds are letting them down.”
Adam Wilson of Ashgill Communications, one of Scotland’s leading telephone and data specialists, says that in the current economic climate, it is more important than ever to ensure that businesses are getting the best value for money from their business broadband.
Wilson explains the current issues surrounding business broadband in an attempt to help firms conclude if they really are getting the best deal possible.
He said: “One of the most common pieces of jargon related to broadband is the contention ratio. Put simply, the contention ratio indicates the number of nearby premises with whom you share the line between your premises and the telephone exchange. To illustrate, if your broadband speed is quoted as “up to 4Mbps” and you have the most common contention ratio of 50:1, when all the users on this shared line are accessing the internet at the same time, your actual connection speed will be one-fiftieth of 4Mbps, i.e. 80kbps.
“A term that has emerged recently is “throttling”. Throttling is the act, by internet service providers (ISPs) of temporarily reducing the speed of your connection, often at set times of the day. Speaking to BBC News, a BT spokesman said this is “in order to optimise the experience for all customers”. What this really means is ISPs are struggling to cope with growing demands upon their services, and so choose not to give you all of what they are charging you for. Ofcom are currently monitoring this issue.
“In addition to this, if you are over two and a half miles from the exchange, you are certain not to get your full connection speed.”
Wilson believes the UK’s broadband providers are currently making a collective attempt to upgrade the country’s broadband services. This upgraded network, called 21CN or ADSL2+, promises to deliver speeds of at least 2Mbps to everyone in Britain by 2012 as recommended in the Government’s Digital Britain report.
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