In a recent poll by Cisco which measured overall quality of internet compared to the percentage of households accessing broadband in the country (penetration), the UK is ranked 25th globally.

This puts the country two places behind the Ukraine yet well ahead of other markets including India, Australia and the UAE.

Chris Marling, editor of broadband comparison website Broadband Genie, said it was easy to criticise the broadband services in the UK, especially given ISP performance over the last few months; however, the results are unsurprising and people must be realistic about the situation.

He continued: "For consumers, you have to ask, are we missing out? The answer is not really.

"Advances in broadband will make way for consumer applications such as 3D TV and 360-degree TV, but this technology is only just poking its head above water."

Mr Marling added that businesses still know that better connections mean better profits, meaning that there may be some private investment in the sector in future months and years.

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.