Three million UK homes are Web "Notspots"

About 15 percent of homes in Britain have Internet broadband access under 2 Megabits per second (Mb), the minimum speed envisaged by the government for the whole country, research shows. In January, communications minister Lord Carter said the government intended to ensure universal broadband access through a mixture of fixed and wireless connections by 2012 to make Britain more competitive and help drag it out of recession. Currently, around 60 percent of the country takes broadband, while some 99 percent has access to it. However, preliminary research by broadband performance website SamKnows on behalf of the BBC found that as many three million homes had Internet connectivity under 2 Mb.