Improved broadband is being called for to prevent rural areas losing out in the digital revolution.

Business Voice West Midlands, a business lobby, has urged Ofcom to step in to increase investment in rural areas to narrow the 'digital divide', for home and business users.

David Collier the organisation's rural economy group chairman said the situation was holding back the competitiveness of rural businesses and making some rural communities unsustainable.

"The longer the digital divide continues between those businesses who have broadband connections and those businesses lacking such connections the worse it will be for rural communities where local job opportunities will be severely harmed," he claimed.

Ofcom replied that it did not have power to make broadband providers implement services in particular regions of the UK.

The Liberal Democrats, who are in talks to form a government, wish to see broadband provision "targeted first at those areas which are least likely to be provided for by the market."

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