Industry news

UK 'lagging behind Europe for super-fast broadband'

Super-fast broadband connections will not become common in the UK until 2015 if current trends remain constant, a new study has warned.

Research from Fibre to the Home (FttH) Council suggested that the UK could lag behind other European nations when it came to the installation and uptake of high-speed and next generation broadband services.

Using a theory called Nielsen's Law, the group predicted that 100Mbit/s broadband would not be easily available for businesses and homeowners in the UK until 2015, five years after France and four after Poland.

It added that mainstream connection speeds typically lag two or three years behind the fastest connections.

What's more, the report suggested that other European countries, such as France, were accelerating towards high-speed broadband. It concluded that Sweden was leading the way and that businesses in the country would be able to access super-fast connections in the coming years.

Recent research from analysts at IDC suggested that governments needed to support the roll out of the fibre technologies that are needed to achieve faster broadband speeds.