BT investment will not make UK world leader, says expert

The managing director of TNS Technology has claimed that BT's fibre-optic broadband project will fail to make the UK one of the top countries in terms of connection speeds.

In a letter to the Financial Times, Amy Cashman said that while the investment would "propel the UK forward", it would have speeds less than Japan and South Korea do presently.

The UK would be brought in line with France, but Ms Cashman said her company believes that all three of these markets will have further investment before 2012.

Internet TV services would be improved, but she said that caps and fair usage policies used by most internet service providers would have to be eased.

"BT's proposition does have the potential to improve our internet TV services significantly, but the UK will remain a second-tier country when it comes to internet speeds," she wrote in her letter.

"This will be especially the case if service providers cannot relax their current position on capping data and fair usage policies."

A spokesman for BT was quoted in Contractor UK admitting that the improvements would not put the UK ahead of South Korea or Japan.

However, he pointed out that availability in the UK was 99 per cent - more than any other G8 country.