KC Says 71% of Brits Consider Broadband Speed During House Hunting

A new survey conducted by incumbent Hull ISP KC, with more than 2,000 adults across the United Kingdom, has revealed that 71% of Brits take Internet speed into account when looking for a new home. This is partly being driven by the growth in connected devices and home working.

The study claims that the need for a faster Internet connection has also been influenced by the rise in home working, with 15% of workers now operating from home for at least one day every month (up from 9% in 2005) and 8% for five days or more every month.

On top of that 30% of respondents also plan to buy at least one more internet-connected device in the next 12 months (households currently own an average of 3 devices), with Tablet computers being top of the list on 14% and that’s followed by smartphones (12%), smart TVs (10%) and games consoles (7%).

The correlation between broadband quality and house value, at least in terms of the property’s attractiveness to a prospective buyer, is of course nothing new and naturally KC are keen to link this into their on-going roll-out of Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) dominated broadband technology (with some FTTC).

Mike Reed, KC’s Customer in Woodmansey, said:

“We put our house on the market late last year and included information about the download speeds achievable here as we believe it’s an attractive feature for prospective buyers. Now that we’ve become used to superfast speeds I’m not prepared to move to a property that doesn’t have the capacity to have fibre to the home, so when viewing properties for the first time it’s one of the first questions I ask the vendor.

The quickest and most reliable internet can only be found with a Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) connection, which uses fibre cables for the full distance, from the exchange right to the home. With no copper cables at all, it can deliver much faster speeds and meet the requirements of 21st century consumers and businesses.”

Setting aside the spin, it’s also important to remember that house value and broadband quality are highly subjective to personal choice. We all want good broadband connectivity but how much extra value that adds or whether you pick one home over another is entirely up to each individual.

Unfortunately the connectivity technology is not always one that consumers have much choice over, so if you live in an area with poor broadband then that’s life until it gets upgraded by the telecoms operator. KC currently aims to extend the reach of their Lightstream superfast broadband network out to 45,000 premises by March 2015 (here).