Universal broadband plans put forward by the government need to be improved if businesses are to benefit, it has been claimed.

Talking to ISPreview.co.uk, Star's Senior Product Manager for Networks and Connectivity David Palmer suggested that the commitment of introducing 2Mb speeds across the UK is not ambitious enough.

He noted that such a connection speed is too slow and the problem could impact on the performance of businesses.

"We are seeing a growing trend of UK businesses using cloud computing and on-demand services and the primary enabler for this is higher bandwidth," he outlined.

"Cloud computing would simply not be practical on ADSL speeds of sub-2Mb due to large file sizes and the general working speed of applications over this bandwidth."

Recent research published by the Economist Intelligence Unit ranked the UK 14th in the world in terms of both internet coverage and infrastructure.

Sweden topped the rankings, with the likes of Hong Kong also featuring in the top ten.