Poor connectivity holding UK back

03rd May 2012

The Government needs to take a more active role in boosting the country's connectivity if the UK is to stand a chance of competing economically with the likes of Japan and Scandinavia, experts have claimed.

A business and technology panel has lamented the lack of interest shown by Government in investing in web connectivity, which it says could change the country’s fortunes for the better.

Asked how the digital wallet and mobile commerce could play a role in resuscitating the UK economy, Hosein Moghaddas, chief business officer at Mobile Money Market said: "The Government has an inherent responsibility to get us all connected with high-speed wifi and that means investment in infrastructure. I believe we should be lobbying government for this. It should be a given."

Jennifer Hiley, senior account director for We Love Mobile, agreed the UK is playing catch up despite consumers demanding a multichannel retail experience across the board.

She suggested that making it simpler for people to spend their money could help shake the country out of the recession.

"The digital wallet is all about convenience for consumers. Whatever we can do to make everything easier to buy is good. We need to be able to browse the internet on the underground and we are getting closer to being able to do that but we need to make progress quickly."

However Lawrence Jones, CEO of hosting specialist UKFast warned that businesses should prepare themselves to cope with the increased amounts of traffic that a faster network would create.

Mr Jones said: "Business continuity issues, such as back-up and replication of lots of data, use a lot of sideways traffic. Businesses need to find inventive ways to manage sideways traffic that don't impact on their internet traffic and the experience for the user.”