The Confederation of British Industry (CBI), a lobbying group for businesses, has released a new report that calls upon the UK government to "think big" when it publishes its forthcoming Communications Bill. In particular it wants the government to expand its current broadband ambitions with a new "longer-term aspiration" for the best broadband economy in the world.

The 'Blazing a trail – the UK communications sector in a global economy' report believes that the communications industry should play a key part in rebalancing the economy, which would require that "regulation is suitable for a dynamic industry" and encourage competition. The country's infrastructure must also be able to "compete on a global stage", it said.

On top of that the CBI wants the government to measure its broadband success by more than "simplistic download speeds", although in fairness they already plan to do that because the UK is unlikely to win on speed alone; many EU states are miles ahead of us (e.g. Sweden).


According to the CBI, the UK is already a major global player in the communications sector; this is believed to be worth at least £50 billion a year to the economy (value terms). The group would also like to see Ofcom promoting the UK communications sector in international markets, which it believes could help to boost annual exports by more than 8.7% between now and 2020.

The governments Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) office is currently spending £530m (could rise to £830m by 2017) to help 90% of "people in each local authority area" gain access to a superfast (25Mbps+) broadband service by 2015; but the last 10% will have to make do with a minimum of 2Mbps. Many believe that more will be needed to keep us competitive.