I’m sure Ofcom didn’t like reading this in yesterday’s Sunday Times:

Britain is one of the most expensive places in Europe to get high-speed internet access, according to switching site Moneysupermarket. French broadband customers pay an average of only 83p a month for every 1Mb per second connection – UK consumers pay £5.60 a month.

Italian and German users also fare better, paying £1.71 and £2.64 respectively. Only the Spanish pay more at £6.33.

French broadband is also much faster than in the UK, with an average speed of 17.6Mb per second while Britain’s consumers suffer speeds as slow as 2.6Mb. Users on the Continent can therefore download material such as films in minutes rather than the hours it can take here.

Jason Lloyd at Moneysupermarket said: “The main reason UK consumers can’t get access to super-fast, low-cost broadband is the inferior telecoms infrastructure and low investment in cable networks over the past 10 years. While we’ve accepted what has been given to us via BT’s copper network and Virgin Media’s cable network, in mainland Europe there has been massive investment in fibre-optic cable networks that deliver super-fast communication services.”

I wonder what Gordon Brown thinks about all this?