Although much has been said about the UK's broadband connectivity, Britain actually lags Poland, Slovakia and Hungary in terms of broadband speeds.

Despite calls from telecoms regulator Ofcom for investment in next-generation high-speed broadband, the average speed in the UK is only 2.6 Mbps, figures from the Information Technology Innovation Foundation (ITIF) show.

This costs households an average of £5.50 per month and compares with an average speed of 21.7 Mbps in Finland, where the price is just £2.54 per month.

Website BroadbandChoices.co.uk conducted 180,000 speed tests last month, finding that businesses who use an ADSL broadband connection receive only slightly more than a third of the speed that they actually pay for.

"Although any upgrade to a fully fibre network is still a long way off, the nationwide launch of BT's 21st Century Network, which will offer speeds of up to 24 Mbps using ADSL2+ technology, will help to close the speed gap," said the website's Michael Phillips.

According to recent survey by Connect, the two biggest IT headaches for businesses were 'everyday hassles with IT' (37 per cent) and 'security concerns' (32 per cent)