Plans to deliver a minimum broadband speed of 2Mbps will be "too little, too late", according to a leading IT expert.

A typical business computer network in a thriving business sector is likely to already have been given priority for broadband coverage by the business sector, claimed editor-in-chief at ISPreview.co.uk Mark Jackson.

He added that the Digital Britain report gave "precious little attention to other critical considerations such as affordability, usage flexibility, upload performance and latency".

Mr Jackson explained: "If left to their own devices, the private sector will always prioritise the coverage of next generation broadband services to areas where it is more commercially viable first - cities and big towns."

BT has already committed to deliver speeds of up to 100Mbps to around 2.5 million UK homes and businesses using fibre optics.

This network is also expected to have far greater capacity in the future, up to 1Gbps.

More than half of small businesses (53 per cent) believe that the most important benefit of outsourcing is guaranteed response times for IT support. London-based Connect conducted the research in 2007.