BT broadband investment 'not enough'

Wed 23 Jul 2008 at 3:45 PM

BT's investment of £1.5 billion in new broadband infrastructure is not enough, BroadbandChoices.co.uk has claimed.

It noted the company's recent pledge, which the website said included money it had earlier promised, fell far short of the figure needed to bring UK up to speed.

Michael Phillips, product director of BroadbandChoices.co.uk, said: "To put fibre optic cables into [the whole of] the UK will actually cost about £15 billion."

"If you look at the discrepancy between those two numbers and you also look at the fact that it is not even covering half the households, …..it's a great start but it doesn't go far enough," he added.

Almost all professional jobs benefit from high-speed internet connections – national statistics show more than 90 per cent of connections to the web are now via broadband.

Mr Phillips said it was up to government and not internet service providers to do more to increase connection speeds.

Job vacancies increasingly exist for home workers, who often rely on fast internet connections to complete their work.