Broadband News

Britons are being over charged for their broadband, paying seven times more than their European counterparts.  This is on top of a general rise in energy bills in the UK.

The research by Money Supermarket reveals that Britain is one of the most expensive places to get high-speed broadband access. In France customers pay only 83p per month for 1Mb/s broadband compared to £5.60 in Britain. It’s a similar situation in Germany and Italy where the cost is £1.71 and £2.64 respectively. In fact only Spain pays more at £6.33.

Another bone of contention for Britons is that French broadband is also significantly faster with an average speed of 17.6Mb/s compared 2.6Mb/s in Britain. This enables our French neighbours to be able to download films in minutes, as opposed to hours like in Britain.

Jason Lloyd at Moneysupermarket said: “The main reason UK consumers can’t get access to super-fast, low-cost broadband is the inferior telecoms infrastructure and low investment in cable networks over the past 10 years. While we’ve accepted what has been given to us via BT’s copper network and Virgin Media’s cable network, in mainland Europe there has been massive investment in fibre-optic cable networks that deliver super-fast communication services.”

Ofcom, the industry regulator, admits that broadband and telecoms technologies are far more advanced in other countries. Particularly as France, where broadband is sent through fibre-optic cables, which are capable of speeds up to 50Mb/s and 100Mb/s.

Currently only Virgin Media offer broadband through fibre optic cables, but even so, the top speed Virgin media offer is 20Mb/s and the average high speed offered by most other ISPs is 8Mb/s.

The regulator urged all consumers to switch providers where possible, which will put pressure on suppliers to bring costs down to European levels.