Matthew Finnie, CTO of Interoute feels the government is justified in its concerns and that investment is required to create a level playing field for UK business:
“Organisations are ever more reliant on internet-based applications to run their business. Demand for Internet capacity and speed, combined with a 104 percent year on year growth in internet usage has transformed how the internet is used. Enormous amounts of data are now transported from one point to the next, which has massive implications for corporate networks. Today’s networks need to evolve to keep up with the pace of change and address user needs.
Fortunately global internet backbone operators have been able to accommodate that demand with new network investment, but broadband’s access layer needs to keep up. Think of Europe’s motorways – everything goes fast on the actual motorway, but when nearing the slip roads things start to slow down. Investment is needed here!”
“International internet traffic is growing 104 percent year on year; this clearly shows the importance. The UK is seriously falling behind countries such as France, US, Germany and Japan who offer delivery speeds of 50 to 100 megabits a second. These countries are able to cope with bandwidth hungry business, but the UK is not there yet.”
“Modern business is becoming increasingly European, with organisations having offices in numerous countries; these multi-national businesses need to operate with standardised access layers to the internet, creating a level playing field for all competing countries – this is especially true of the emerging European markets.
Currently there is no consistency from country to the next at the access layer of the internet. It is this part that has an impact on speed and capacity; information being sent from Germany through a fast access layer to a slow access layer in the UK will take longer for the information to be received – think slip roads again.
This is unacceptable and impact’s on the UK’s status as a leader in the global business market. The government’s concerns are legitimate and investment is needed for the UK to remain competitive in the global markets.”