The Office of Communications (Ofcom) has a difficult remit and may have problems standardising the market, it has been stated.

Edd Dawson, the managing director of broadband.co.uk, said that a product such as a broadband internet connection could be both a regulatory and technical burden for the organisation, noting the example that electricity either works or it does not, with web links working on a different scale.

However, he added, Ofcom still had a role to play in the UK.

Mr Dawson continued: "With broadband a consumer can complain of poor speeds and the supplier can dispute it, it's not so black and white, just shades of grey.

"Where we feel Ofcom can really play a part in is trying to enforce good customer service."

Last week, Ofcom revealed that only two-thirds of customers were happy with their internet connection's ability to deal with streaming or downloading online TV programmes.

In a recent survey of SMEs for Connect, the two most important benefits of outsourcing were guaranteed response times and allowing in-house IT staff to concentrate on more strategic issues.