A review released recently showed the UK as being on the right road to maintain the position as economic leaders when it comes to broadband internet.

The review shows that competition in the UK telecoms market will allow the UK to move forward to the Next Generation Access (NGA) for broadband and as such will allow the country to stay a leading online economy. This, however, will need the leadership of both the government and Ofcom to remain vigilant.

The next big move towards broadband evolution will by provided by Next Generation Access and will allow the country to provide increased speeds of broadband access to small and midsize businesses and home users as well. The future of a successful economy for the UK is dependant on companies utilizing and building on the opportunities that come from this rapidly developing technology.

In February of this year the review was commissioned by HM Treasury and the Department for Business to look into the barriers to investment in NGA. Promising reports have been issued by Mr Caio, from Lehman Brothers indication that various big name companies like BT and Virgin Media, and even interest from local communities who are looking into new ways of deploying this technology.

Francesco Caio said on release of this report “The next phase of broadband UK; action now for long term success. The UK and its consumers and businesses benefit from a competitive broadband industry and a rich choice of digital communications and entertainment platforms.”

He also stated: “Although demand for bandwidth and Internet traffic continues to exhibit strong growth, there is little evidence that in the short term the UK is going to suffer from the lack of an extensive next generation access network. I have therefore concluded that the case for a public intervention at this time is weak at best. But it is the right time to create the conditions that will deliver a competitive NGA infrastructure in the next five years”

Another recommendation of the report was for Government to look into ways to develop new networks at a lower cost without the market becoming distorted. The huge investments made by companies in the last decade is the way in which broadband has developed so quickly. By comparison only 10 percent of the UK had accessed the internet in 1997 whereas at the end of last year this figure had risen to more than 70 percent with over 50 percent of homes in the country accessing the internet using broadband.