FSB wants higher speeds for small businesses

Officials from the Federation of Small Businesses have recently said that small companies should be provided with minimum broadband speeds of 8Mbps by their Internet Service Providers.

For casual users of the Internet having slower speeds may not be a huge issue when it comes to their broadband service, but for heavier users and for businesses inadequate access to higher speed broadband can be catastrophic.

This is especially true for small businesses, which can suffer hugely in terms of business, turnover, and overall success unless they have broadband speeds that will enable them to use certain applications and technology effectively.

The Federation of Small Businesses has recently spoken out about the importance of higher speed broadband services for small businesses, and has said that these businesses should be receiving minimum speeds of 8Mbps from their Internet Service Providers. The FSB said that ISPs should be obliged to provide this minimum speed to small businesses.

A survey was recently carried out by the FSB, and this involved polling nearly thirteen hundred small businesses about their broadband service. The results of the study showed that nearly a quarter of small organisations were not satisfied with the speeds that they were receiving from their Internet providers. A further sixty three percent said that reliability and speed were major issues.

An official from the FSB stated: “We think that Labour’s proposed 2Mbit/s service lacks ambition. Most firms already have speeds of this nature and need more. To have a truly global broadband economy we need speeds that are useful to businesses for the future.” However, a spokesperson for the ISP’s Association said: “People do not understand that, unless you are near the exchange, it is very hard to get the speeds that services are quoted as ‘up to’. The ageing copper networks in the ground cannot provide the speeds people think they are going to get.”

Source – V3