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Ofcom – Highest Level of SME Dissatisfaction Stems from Fixed Broadband

Thursday, Jan 5th, 2017 (12:30 pm) - Score 1,026

The telecoms regulator has quietly published a new survey of 1,501 small and medium sized businesses (0-249 employees), which reveals that the vast majority (82%) feel well catered for by communication services but the “highest levels of dissatisfaction” remain with fixed-line broadband services.

Apparently SMEs claim to spend, on average, £1.4k per year on communications services, with this spend increasing as they grow in size; from an average of £1,105 in 0 to 4-employee businesses to an average of £11,323 in 50 to 249-employee businesses.

However the main area of SME frustration is still related to Internet connectivity and that’s hardly a surprise when the “majority still had ADSL” and satisfaction with this service was “lower than for all other forms of fixed broadband. Speed and reliability remained the two key issues.”

Overall a quarter of ADSL using SMEs (26%) were dissatisfied. ADSL is of course notorious for its unreliable speeds and service stability issues due, largely, to using poor or long copper lines.

1.3. Satisfaction with services used

The areas of highest satisfaction were:

• PSTN landline: geographic coverage (89% satisfied), reliability (88%) and value for money (72%)

• Internet: being able to send and receive emails/access the internet (81% satisfied), geographic coverage (74%), and reliability (73%)

• Mobile phone: being able to send and receive emails/ access the internet (smartphone users 80% satisfied), value for money (78%), reliability of signal (75%) and geographic coverage (73%).

The following were the key areas in which higher proportions of SMEs were dissatisfied with each service:

• PSTN landline: clear and understandable terms (15% dissatisfied), quality of customer service staff (14%), value for money (14%);

• Internet: connection speed (29%), access speed paid for (28% dissatisfied), availability of symmetrical services (24%);

• Mobile phone: geographic coverage (18% dissatisfied), signal reliability (16%).

Ease of contacting the customer service department was a source of frustration across all three services, but notably for the internet (internet: 25% dissatisfied, PSTN landline: 19% dissatisfied, mobile: 10% dissatisfied).

Among SMEs with fixed-line broadband, a quarter (23%) had “fibre/superfast” style services and 5% had cable (e.g. Virgin Media). Meanwhile ADSL/SDSL connections were more common among smaller SMEs and those in rural locations (73% in rural, 72% in remote rural), which isn’t a surprise as the technology choice for rural areas tends to be rather more limited.

On the other hand larger SMEs were more likely to have fibre/superfast connectivity (36% of small and 50% of medium SMEs). Elsewhere 32% of SMEs with fixed-line broadband in Northern Ireland said they had fibre/superfast, compared with only 12% in Scotland (78% had copper/standard).

Of the 5% of SMEs with dedicated Internet, a third said this was provided via fibre Ethernet leased lines. Overall, 78% used some kind of Ethernet connection (rising to 90% of medium SMEs) and a fifth did not know the source of their dedicated internet access.

comms services used by sme 2017

Satisfaction levels varied according to the type of connectivity. For example, 69% were satisfied with their fixed-line broadband overall (62% with ADSL, rising to 81% for fibre/superfast and 87% for cable). Of those with dedicated internet access, 85% were satisfied.

However the highest levels of dissatisfaction were with connection speed (29% dissatisfied), the ability to access the speed paid for (28%) and ease of contacting customer services (25%). The highest levels of satisfaction with service were: reliability to send and receive emails (81% satisfied), geographic availability (74%) and quality of connection (73%).

sme satisfaction with comms services used 2017

Ofcom and the Government have of course been trying to push for improvements in the quality, coverage and performance of business broadband connectivity, although it’s a slow process and ultimately getting the networks out to all those who need them remains the biggest challenge.

On the upside “superfast broadband” (24Mbps+) is expected to cover around 97% of the UK by the end of 2020 and there’s a 10Mbps Universal Service Obligation (USO) on the way to help in remote rural areas, which is good. However many homes and businesses will no doubt demand more and there’s clearly room for further improvement. The full report contains a lot more detail.

SME Experience of Communications Services 2016
https://www.ofcom.org.uk/../Ofcom-SME-consumer-experience-research-2016-Report.pdf

Mark-Jackson
By Mark Jackson
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook and .
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