Posted: 04th Jun, 2009 By: MarkJ
The Managing Director (MD) of Easynet Connect ( BSkyB - Sky Broadband ), Chris Stening, has issued a small '
business perspective' comment on the recent news that consumers now see broadband Internet access as being as essential as their water or electricity supply (
original news).
Stening told ISPreview.co.uk:
"It's interesting that consumers are now considering the Internet as a utility, as research suggests this has long been the opinion of businesses in the UK. As early as May 2008, 71% of SMEs said their business could not cope for more than a day without the internet, and with the growth in cloud computing, we'd expect that to be far more by now.
Consumers are also catching up with businesses when they say they're interested not just in the speed of their connection, but more specifically its ability to support the services they want. As companies take more of their applications online, they demand not only fast internet, but a service that is reliable and well supported. Business ISPs are doing everything they can to ensure this is available, as they know that SMEs are the lifeblood of the UK, and internet service should be the last thing they have to worry about."
This reminds us once more that the government’s pledge to bring broadband speeds of 2Mbps to everybody in the UK must also consider business as well as consumer needs. Business users will invariably require a much more flexible and higher quality service than consumers.