THE managing director of Teesside business-to-business communications specialist Odyssey Systems believes providers are to blame for the UK’s low take-up of superfast broadband.

A new report from Ofcom has shown only 4% of UK homes are taking advantage of superfast broadband, defined as giving speeds in excess of 24 megabits per second (MBPS).

Mike Odysseas, left, founder and managing director of Odyssey Systems, said: “There would be a much higher take-up of superfast broadband if providers offered the right packages at reasonable prices.

“Most packages have limits on monthly bandwidth usage and those which do not are usually very expensive. Therefore, if the majority of people had superfast broadband, they would be likely to use up their quota of bandwidth very early in the month and be left with incredibly slow service.

“Another problem is that providers, particularly BT, traffic manage their broadband customers, increasing and reducing speeds depending upon the time of the day, so that more customers can get online at the busiest periods – but at slower speeds.

“Odyssey Systems does neither of these things and I believe that if other providers improved their packages, so they were less managed, more reasonably priced and allowed customers the real speeds, the uptake of superfast broadband would be vastly greater.

“Another option companies can look at to improve speeds is to find a specialist business provider which does not have residential customers and, as a result, clients do not suffer from the same peaks and troughs of traffic flow.”

For more information about broadband and other services from Odyssey Systems, log on to www.odyssey-systems.co.uk