UK slips down broadband world leaderboard

Delays in executing theDigital Britain recommendationsmay have caused the UK's slip in world rankings as broadband leaders increased their lead in broadband quality.

In a study of 65 countries sponsored by network equipment maker Cisco, researchers from the Said Business School at Oxford and University of Oviedo's Department of Applied Economics found broadband quality is linked to a nation's advancement as a knowledge economy.

The research ranks the UK 25th (down from 24th in 2008) measured by the proportion of households accessing broadband. This was behind Taiwan and Ukraine but ahead of Germany, Spain and Italy.

Birmingham and Glasgow were the only British towns rated as meeting today's broadband needs, a long way behind leaders Yokohama and Nagoya in Japan. Broadband services in rural areas were just adequate for today's applications, they said.

The researchers said UK broadband speeds were improving. Download speeds were 39% faster on average while upload speeds had increased by 37%, But latency (the delay on the network) had increased by 8%.

The UK's broadband quality score, a weighted measure to reflect users' actual online experience, improved from 28.3 to 30.8 points, but the UK still lagged behind its peer group, they said.

Since the research was done in April, BT and Virgin Media have both increased the speeds of their networks, and said they intend to increase their coverage.

The UK government has committed itself to rolling out universal access to a 2Mbps service, as recommended in the Digital Britain report.

However, uncertainties over the tax treatment of investments in networks, the availability of government money to pay for supplying broadband to remote areas and difficulties policing illegal filesharers are delaying new investors.

The Broadband Stakeholders Group is waiting for the Valuation Office Agency to respond to queries what taxes different network deployments might attract in order to remove some of the uncertainties.