Britain’s SMEs are suffering from slow broadband, making it impossible for them to compete in the global market-place.
With 45,000 small businesses across Britain still using dial-up internet, the Government has given itself five years to achieve its target of bringing 10Mbps (megabits per second) internet to all homes and businesses (Finland’s target is 100Mbps by 2015; South Korea’s is 1Gbps by 2017).
The Federation of Small Businesses has called for faster internet to enable the county’s businesses to prosper. An FSB report published in July showed that 94% of small business owners consider a reliable internet connection to be critical to the success of their business, and only 15% of firms are “very satisfied” with their broadband provision.
Richard Williams, director of Gloucestershire-based Williams Automobiles, claims that cripplingly slow broadband speeds are damaging his business. “Our broadband is so slow it hardly functions. It’s an enormous problem for us and a huge number of rural businesses. We can’t make payments or even book airline tickets.”
Poor broadband speed is not just an issue in rural areas; a recent report by the Centre for Economics and Business Research found that London’s SMEs lose over 50,000 working days each year waiting for broadband installation.