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Government plans to make Britain a world leader in the digital economy are under threat because high electricity prices are forcing companies to locate power-hungry data centres in other countries. Under the Government’s Digital Britain report, published last month, every British home and business will have a minimum 2MB broadband link. However, Derek Webster, associate director of McBains Cooper, a building consultancy, said that British electricity prices, which are the third highest in Europe, are forcing developers to build the infrastructure needed for these plans in countries such as France, potentially undermining UK competitiveness.

Some companies, including Yahoo!, have already switched their European headquarters from London to the Continent, citing high costs and a lack of the infrastructure needed to support their businesses. Santander, the Spanish banking group, recently scrapped plans to locate a big European data centre in London, opting instead for a cheaper site in Madrid.

Source: Times Online

The data centre sector must strive to build more data storage facilities in the UK if it is to meet growing demand, it has been claimed. According to communications minister Lord Carter’s Digital Britain report, failure to do so will impact on the British economy.

The report claims that when the recession ends demand for data centres will start to increase and with London being Europe’s largest data centre market and a major location for international business, more needs to be done to ensure it remains at the forefront of the IT sector. “The current demand for highly-connected data centres in the UK points to constraints in supply which is of concern as these facilities can take up to two years to build from initial inception,” the report states. “All of the information on the global Internet, whether for commerce, industry or consumer consumption, has to be stored somewhere in digital form on servers,” it adds.

Source: Comms Express