Faster broadband essential for rural businesses

A rural communities group has re-iterated what a number of other similar groups have been saying recently – that faster broadband is essential in rural areas for businesses in these areas to thrive.

Over the past couple of years a number of industry groups and rural community groups have expressed their concerns about the way in which businesses situated in rural areas will suffer as a result of lack of broadband access, which has been a problem for rural locations from the start.

Another communities group, the Commission for Rural Communities, has now expressed its own concerns, stating that faster broadband in rural areas would help businesses in these areas to ‘realise their potential’. The government agency said that in order for businesses in these areas to contribute to the economy more it was essential for faster broadband services to be made available.

The CRC said in its recent report that improvement to the broadband and communications infrastructure in such areas is essential. The group also said that given the cutbacks outlined in the coalition government’s emergency budget the need to provide the tools and resources for businesses in these areas to succeed had become even more vital.

The report followed another recent report from the Office for National Statistics, which showed that over nineteen million households in the UK now had broadband internet access, which equated to nearly seventy five percent of households in the country. This marked an increase of nearly one million compared to last year, and a rise of five million compared to just four years ago.

Source – Cable