More than two-thirds of Britain could easily get the ability to use 8mb or 24mb business broadband network speeds or higher without any extra government funding, a report compiled by the Business Innovation and Skills Committee believes.

The Committee goes as far as to call the possibility of the Government intervening to ensure that its target of having high-speed broadband available to 70 per cent of the country by 2017 "unwise".

Its reasons for reaching this conclusion were that it could lead to a distortion in the business phone and broadband market, and not allow time for any technological solutions devised in the meantime to be tested sufficiently to allow them to play a part in extending the reach of high-speed broadband services across the country.

The committee has also voiced the opinion that there is little evidence of pent-up demand for this enhanced service, and that customers are currently unwilling to pay a price premium to access such high-speed services.

Instead, it believes that the UK government should switch its attention to encouraging outside bodies and commercial interests to invest in next-generation access (NGA) capability. The MPs on the committee said they believed this could best be achieved by means of alterations to the regulatory and tax systems.

Findings of a report commissioned by the Government itself into its proposals compared the likely levels of coverage which would be achieved if it went ahead with plans to levy a 50p per month ‘broadband tax’ on each UK home, against what would be achievable by the markets if they were left to fund the improvement themselves.

It wanted to know the likely outcomes in the latter scenario in the event of the funding from the levy not being available, or take-up of the scheme not reaching projected levels. In either of these cases, the shortfall in the funding available would have to be met by commercial sources.

The MPs on the committee concluded that this would be likely to happen as businesses increasingly realised that having high-speed 8mb or 24mb business broadband capability, or faster, was in their competitive interest.

Such speeds are already available in the UK through selected providers, who work with a number of industry partners to give companies ways of working more quickly and efficiently through the adoption of the latest, proven technology.