High speed internet as important as rail and roads

broadband speeds

UK companies think improvements to their broadband networks are just as important as improvements to transport links.

New research by Virgin Media Business, showed broadband, rail and roads each getting 30 per cent of the 5,000 companies' votes when asked what was critical to their enterprises.

However, when this research was broken down into regions, some found the broadband network even more imperative.

Some 40 per cent of London-based respondents said a faster network would improve their profits whilst only 24 per cent wanted improvements to London's notorious transport network.

The South West and Wales also had a strong desire for fast internet with 38 per cent citing it as the most important, and 36 per cent of the South East felt the same.

Andrew McGrath, executive director at Virgin Media Business, said: "Global figureheads from Prime Ministers to leading business owners have identified better communications infrastructure as the linchpin for improving the global economy [and] here in the UK we saw a general election packed with policies on how each political party would improve the nation's communications infrastructure."

"This survey highlights that the issue is still at the forefront of the boardroom agenda, and highlights the very real need for businesses to step away from legacy infrastructure towards a faster future."

However, it wasn't the same throughout the rest of the UK.

When it came to Midlands-based companies, more than a third (37 per cent) felt better train access would improve their businesses and the same percentage in Yorkshire would prefer improvements to roads rather than broadband.

Jennifer Scott

Jennifer Scott is a former freelance journalist and currently political reporter for Sky News. She has a varied writing history, having started her career at Dennis Publishing, working in various roles across its business technology titles, including ITPro. Jennifer has specialised in a number of areas over the years and has produced a wealth of content for ITPro, focusing largely on data storage, networking, cloud computing, and telecommunications.

Most recently Jennifer has turned her skills to the political sphere and broadcast journalism, where she has worked for the BBC as a political reporter, before moving to Sky News.