Chief Minister Howard Quayle has pledged there will be faster broadband speeds across the island.

A report is set to be released soon, proposing a national minimum broadband speed of 30 megabytes per second be introduced, in conjunction with telecoms providers.

However, he admitted it could take years for it to be fully implemented.

’I hope to release the report shortly, alongside a Council of Ministers’ response and action plan,’ Mr Quayle said.

’I can say that the report recommends that Council works with telecoms providers to develop a national, minimum broadband speed of 30 megabytes per second, including those in rural areas.’

Broadband speeds in the Isle of Man are the subject of much debate, with concern that if speeds lag behind those in other jurisdictions, it could impact upon business.

Mr Quayle said: ’We should not underestimate the achievement of our existing telecom providers in making ADSL available to 100% of homes on the island and VDSL, which offers faster speeds to 91% of the island.

’The first fibre-to-the-home deployments will start this year and licensed operators are currently taking expressions of interest from customers.’

The Chief Minister was responding to a question in the House of Keys on Tuesday from Tim Baker (Ayre and Michael), who wanted to know what was being done to improve broadband services in the island.

Mr Baker sought a commitment that the new target speed would be applied in all parts of the island and for an indication of how long it might take.

Mr Quayle said it was important that it covered the countryside as well as towns.

’As someone who lives with three megabytes per second, that is totally unacceptable,’ said Mr Quayle.

’I hope that we would be sharing a plan with members by the end of March.

’Hopefully we will get good backing for this plan.

’It will take a number of years to roll out across the island, but I hope it will be two to four years, rather than tens of years.’

In August last year, an international league table of broadband speeds put the Isle of Man at 50th in the world, way behind Jersey at 14th and the UK at 31st.

The survey, by cable.co.uk, found that it took an hour and 53 minutes to download a 7.5GM high definition film, compared with 62 minutes in the UK.

Providers in the Isle of Man offer a range of broadband products, with ADSL (up to 16Mbps) available to 100% of households with fixed lines.

Other broadband products include VDSL (up to 40Mbps) and VSDL+ (up to 100Mbps).

In December this year a new product was launched offering up to 200 Mbps.

Fibre to premises is due to be rolled out to some areas of the island from 2018 and can offer up to 1,000 Mbps.

4G high speed mobile broadband is available to 99% of the island’s population.

In many other jurisdictions, there has been massive state investment to support high-speed broadband delivery.

Both Manx Telecom and Sure have pointed out that a number of factors can affect download speed.

They include the router, the internet service being paid for and the number of devices connected.