UKs infrastructure has limited broadband speeds

The UK's telephony infrastructure can only facilitate "limited broadband speeds", say industry experts.

According to the Internet Services Providers' Association (ISPA), which is the UK's voluntary trade association for providers of internet services, the UK's historic telephone infrastructure will not be able to adopt developments in fast broadband technologies as quickly as some other countries.

ISPA's spokesperson commented that because the UK was one of the first industrialising and technologically adopting countries in the world its infrastructure, which was intended for traditional telephony, has become outdated sooner than infrastructures in other parts of the world.

He said: "[However, it has] been changing…you've got BT's 21CN being put into place by 2011… People are saying that we won't necessarily get fibre to the home, which other countries have, but 21CN networks should actually achieve much of the same things.

"[But I think] the market will drive it, and the technologies available will drive improvements in network performance."

BT's 21CN is an advanced broadband network based on "intelligent systems", internet protocol, session initiation protocol and multi-protocol label switching.

It is scheduled to provide both a public switched telephone and broadband network throughout the UK by 2011.

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