The UK must address issues stalling investment in next-generation communications networks to avoid losing out to global rivals, says the government’s broadband advisory body.

The UK now has more than 13 million high-speed internet connections and leads the G7 in terms of availability.

But the massive capital cost of upgrading the network with fibre to the home, which is needed to deliver bandwidth-hungry services such as television pictures, may delay development, says a Broadband Stakeholder Group (BSG) report.

The report, published this week, recommends a wide investigation to establish the social and economic value of universal high-speed communications, and does not rule out the need for government investment.

‘The capital costs we are talking about in terms of deploying fibre into the access network are an order of magnitude higher than the cost of deploying ADSL broadband technology,’ BSG chief executive Antony Walker told Computing.

‘There are real benefits associated with ubiquitous availability, so in the long term there may be good, sound economic reasons for supporting intervention in the market,’ he said.

Government and industry need to start work immediately to address the commercial, policy and regulatory issues of next-generation broadband, says Walker.

‘If we leave it for another couple of years then we will risk falling behind,’ he said.