Satisfaction with Home WiFi Reliability and Mobile Signal by UK Region

Nominet has published the results of new poll, which queried 2,080 UK adults about their home internet connectivity (i.e. attitudes to broadband ISP, WiFi and mobile reliability). Overall 60% of respondents would opt for reliability over speed and 79% said they had experienced broadband reliability problems in the last year.

Meanwhile 66% felt that consistent geographical coverage should be prioritised over localised pockets of higher speeds, which is perhaps in keeping with the revelation that nearly a fifth (18%) of Londoners were wholly dissatisfied with their internet connection (compared to 86% of the North East who were wholly satisfied).

One possible catch here is that the survey doesn’t attempt to separate broadband from local connectivity problems, since consumers will often wrongfully blame their broadband for problems that could also be caused by factors outside of the ISPs control (e.g. slow WiFi, power cuts, local network congestion, local network/router configuration problems, third-party device errors etc.).

However, despite the majority claiming to have experienced problems in the last year, over three quarters (77%) of respondents said they are satisfied with their home internet connection speed and a slightly smaller proportion (76%) are satisfied overall with its reliability.

The research also examined dissatisfaction with local mobile (3G, 4G, 5G) internet signals, which scored consistently lower rates of satisfaction than home Wi-Fi. Of those polled, some 18% said that they couldn’t rely on their local mobile internet coverage for anything beyond basic tasks. Scots, those in Northern Ireland and the South West in particular, seemed to struggle with their mobile broadband signals.

Russell Haworth, CEO of Nominet, said:

“In our ‘always on’ era it’s becoming more important than ever that everyone has access to a reliable and consistent connection.

Whether it’s struggling to complete homework online, not being able to download critical documents for work or having an online payment cancelled or disrupted, the ramifications of a poor connection can stretch far into the future. If the UK is to have a vibrant digital future – not just in pockets, but across the whole country – we need to deliver on consistency and equality, and open up the way we build our digital infrastructure to new and independent players.”

You can see how all of this breaks down by region below, although by the looks of it they asked people about home WiFi rather than broadband, although the two sides of such connections seem to have overlapped a bit in their press release (hence our earlier remark about broadband problems sometimes being wrongfully attributed).

Satisfaction with home Wi-Fi reliability – by region

Satisfaction with reliability of local mobile signal – by region