AS super-fast fibe broadband becomes available to more and more homes, a retired Government worker has said firstly the focus should be on making sure everyone receives an acceptable internet service.

BT customer Barrie Stedman, a father-of-two from Brockley, near Bury St Edmunds, said he keeps losing connection and the speeds are so slow “it is virtually impossible to complete anything but the smallest of documents online”.

The 63-year-old said he had repeatedly reported the problem to BT, but the provider has “done nothing.”

A spokesman for BT said the speeds were affected by distance to the exchange in Hawkedon, adding how engineers had looked at the problem, but unfortunately there was nothing the firm could do currently.

Mr Stedman, who relies on the internet for charity work, said: “I think we need to bring everybody up to an acceptable standard and then prioritise where there is a high business demand.

“I recognise when I was dependent upon it for business it was far more important than perhaps it is now, but if you ask the clients I help with their benefits appeals they would probably say the opposite.”

The BT spokesman said: “Speeds on individual lines, where service is delivered over a copper infrastructure, are subject to the laws of physics. The signals used by ADSL broadband lose strength over distance so the further you are from an exchange, the less speed you likely get. “

He added how the firm was doing more than any other to create new technologies which would increase broadband speeds over longer distances, and continued to invest heavily in their network.