A new report on worldwide Internet speeds has the UK near the bottom, because to a lack of government investment in fibre-based broadband.
Figures released by the OECDput the UK 21st in the table of 30 countries ranked by consumer Internet access speeds.
The top ten included Japan’s 1Gb/s, Finland’s 110Mb/s, and the 100Mb/s offered by Finland, Sweden, Korea, Iceland, France, and Denmark. The UK is even beaten to the post by the the Netherland’s 60Mb/s, and the 50Mb/s available to residents of the United States and Spain.
The OECD said
government investment in broadband technologies is sorely required – with benefits being felt in electricity, health, education, and transportation sectors should funds be allocated to broadband development. The OECD’s Taylor Reynolds believes that “if you cut 1 percent off the costs of education, electricity, health and transportation you would more than pay for a fibre network” and each sector would gain far more than it would lose.
The UK government will have to take serious action to improve matters. With the UK 21st out of 30 in terms of raw speed – and a not much better 13th out of 30 in terms of overall penetration.
There seems to be some sort of ideological impediment to the UK government investing in the infrastructure. The UK is much more orientated to trying to get private investment.
no comment untill now