Cityfibre Finds Businesses in Scotland Unhappy with their Internet Links

A new online YouGov poll of 100 IT decision makers in Scotland, which was commissioned by Cityfibre, has reported that 92% of respondents view high quality, fast broadband as important to the success of their company and yet 52% felt as if connectivity in Scotland was worse than other parts of the UK.

Improved internet connectivity was also the most commonly cited driver behind economic and business growth (61%), which ranks higher than a reduced rate of tax (48%), improved national and international transport links (59% and 37% respectively) and increased housing construction (23%).

The study also revealed how 47% of businesses felt that poor Internet would adversely affect their decision to invest in new technology (e.g. cloud and VoIP services), while 65% of businesses in Scotland said insufficient Internet would cause a drop in office productivity.

James McClafferty, CityFibre’s City Development Manager, said:

“Fast, reliable broadband connectivity is vital in modern business, The fact that 61% of the IT decision makers we polled in Scotland agree and yet over half (52%) of them rate their current service as substandard should be a real concern.

Scotland is a vital part of the UK economy. Regions like Aberdeen, Edinburgh and others are powerhouses of important industries like oil and gas and financial services. Such areas are in desperate need of cutting edge technology in order to carry out their day-to-day business. More importantly they need the network infrastructure to support it.”

Naturally Cityfibre has a vested interest in this since they’ve recently started the construction of a new ultrafast Gigabit fibre optic broadband network in the Scottish cities of Edinburgh (here) and Aberdeen (here).

Indeed the poll found that many of the above concerns could be tackled by such a deployment, with 44% of respondents believing revenues would increase, while 55% and 68% predicted that cost efficiency and productivity would improve respectively.