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UK is 'behind in broadband rush'
Monday 29th December 2008, by Daniel King
The UK is falling behind the rest of the world in the take-up of broadband technology, an expert has claimed.
This is the opinion of Professor Christopher Bishop, chief scientist at Microsoft Research Cambridge, reports the Guardian.
He said that the country's failure to keep up with advances in broadband technology seen in other nations across the globe could see Britain lag behind in the healthcare, entertainment and education sectors.
Professor Bishop said the government needs to launch a programme to install fibre optic cables throughout the country to boost broadband capacity.
He commented: "If we are looking for a government project that would stimulate the economy in the short term and help combat the impact of the credit crunch, while also bringing long-lasting improvements to the nation's infrastructure, then we could do no better than rewire the nation with fibre optics."
A large amount of data can be moved around the country already, but this has not been extended to domestic residences because there is not enough bandwidth in the telephone cables.
He said that this is having an adverse effect on small businesses, particularly when compared with the Far East, where state-funded fibre optic networks offer significantly faster broadband speeds.
In countries such as Japan and Korea, doctors, teachers and businesses are reaping the rewards from the services.
X-rays and patient files can be shared and accessed faster, schools can download lessons with complex diagrams and video files and video-conferencing could soon replace meetings, according to Professor Bishop.
In Japan and Korea, an average real-world broadband speed is between 40 and 50Mbps, compared with connections in the UK, which are usually less than 8Mbps.
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