Office Chatter

BT has attracted a speeding ban for going too slow.

Back in April Euroffice scooped the opposition by bringing you results of an Ofcom survey on how promised broadband speeds (or telephone broadband provider) had nothing to do with reality. This is bad for business.

Customers of small businesses will not wait while your page loads so business vanishes. According to data quoted in April, one-third of users are lost if your website takes more than four seconds to download and broadband users are 'more impatient' than dial-up users.

So the CCC (my acronym for the Cameron Clegg Coalition) have set out their budgetary stall. We knew what to expect and small business organisations seem pleased with the Queen's Speech. But the CCC have studiously avoided the awkward question of VAT.

Small businesses know only too well that if their websites are slow to react, customers simply go elsewhere. So Office Chatter is on the broadband case for you. While users should check their speed and should complain to their provider if they are not getting the speeds agreed, an Ofcom spokeswoman also told us that Ofcom would be interested in hearing from SMEs who are not getting the speeds their contract seemed to promise them.