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FSB says lack of broadband is a barrier to online trading
Small firms are being put off trading online by a lack of high-speed broadband access.
A new report from the organisation revealed the web is a crucial tool for smaller firms to secure customers overseas.
While 97 per cent of those that trade online do so within the UK, two-fifths of respondents also operate in other European Economic Area countries, a third have customers in North America and one in four sells goods and services in Australasia.
However, online trading could be even more prevalent if certain barriers were removed, the FSB claimed.
One of the biggest issues preventing businesses from taking advantage of ecommerce is lack of high-speed broadband access, which is potentially holding firms back from expanding their operations, it insisted.
Nine per cent of small enterprises cannot use current-generation broadband - offering speeds of up to 24Mbps - at any of their sites, while 22 per cent said the service is not available to at least one of their properties.
Furthermore, around a quarter of smaller firms are only able to access speeds of up to 2Mbps.
The FSB expressed concern that the Conservative-led coalition is not doing enough to remove this barrier by providing the UK with a seamless broadband infrastructure with no divide between urban and rural areas.
Under its plan to deliver the best super-fast broadband network in Europe by 2015, the government has allocated £530 million to subsidise rollouts in the mostly rural areas that would otherwise be likely to miss out on investment from telecoms firms.
National chairman of the business organisation John Walker said: "The biggest obstacle for many small businesses is the lack of broadband speeds and so as a result they cannot compete online.
"The FSB is calling on the government to ensure that all small businesses are connected and have access to the broadband speeds they need."