I was reading this week’s editorial in Electronics Weekly, (“UK heading for broadband slow lane“), about the UK heading for the broadband slow lane, and quite frankly couldn’t agree more. Some MPs actually questioned if the 2Mbit/second in the Digital Britain report was a typo.

At the moment 2Mb/s is fine, well so long as you actually get that speed. But if that connection is split between a few users and several are trying to download or stream HD video then you’re in trouble. Now this is the point where I should point to several Asian countries who are promising much quicker speeds, and I could, quite easily, but 2Mb/s is woefully slow even in Europe. France and Germany are targeting between 50-100 Mb/s over the next three years, and have already got speeds of around 20Mb/s in most places. Yet we’re aiming for 2Mb/s by 2012?! And this is supposed to be an ambitious target that we might not even manage in three years time.

Unless the Digital Britain reports gets a serious re-think, the UK is in danger of becoming a laughing stock.

On a completely unrelated topic, on Twitter #1stdraftmovielines is becoming one of my favourite tags of all time. I strongly suggest you go read it now.