Businesses call for more urgency on full fibre broadband
The Institute of Directors called on the government to commit to a firm date to switch off the UK’s old network of copper lines, in order to force the shift to faster fibre broadband on Wednesday.
Last week, the government’s Future Telecoms Infrastructure Review said a it was a realistic assumption “that switchover could be underway in the majority of the country by 2030”, but the IoD urged a more ambitious target - “as soon as possible after 2025”.
The business group said that switching to fibre would bring “wider benefits” than just faster speeds for consumers.
According to a poll conducted of 700 of its members, the biggest effect of improved broadband would be enabling employees to work more flexibly.
It would also apparently allow companies themselves to become more flexible, adopting and offering more cloud-based services.
Directors “overwhelmingly” said they used home broadband for work purposes, showing that the traditional divide between business and personal internet was breaking down.
And the benefits would stretch beyond towns and cities, too, with the IoD saying that almost half of rural businesses reported “unreliable” connections.
It said rolling out fibre across the country would be “vital” to addressing regional imbalances.
As well as having better reported broadband connections, those in inner cities were 24% more likely to use cloud services for data storage than those in rural areas.
“With an ever-changing world of work, business should be looking to enable employees to work flexibly. Unfortunately, firms are paying the price for the neglect of full fibre connectivity,” said the IoD’s senior advisor on infrastructure Dan Lewis.
“We are jogging while the rest of the world is sprinting. We need a copper switch-off date of 2025 or soon after.”
Lewis said that where someone lives should not determine their ability to work, or start a business, with flexibility.
“The internet should be creating a more level playing field for businesses regardless of location, but uneven broadband coverage means the opposite is true.
“For many firms, particularly in rural areas, poor connections lead to lost business and missed opportunities.”
Lewis did say that the IoD “welcomed” many of the measures proposed in the Future Telecom Infrastructure Review to increase supply, but he added that the challenge to a fibre rollout was no longer about money.
“Going forward, the task will be educating landlords, consumers and businesses about the benefits of fibre.
“More difficult will be finding and training enough digital engineers to accelerate the fibre rollout from two million premises a year to over three million.
“With Brexit looming, there has never been a better time to invest in fibre optic cable and deliver immediate benefits to those who start using it.”