UK SME Businesses Spend £2,052 a Year on Telecom Services

A new survey of 208 workers, self-employed individuals and small business owners, which was conducted in May 2019 by Consumer Intelligence on behalf of broadband ISP Onecom, has found that the average SME business spent £2,052 a year on telecommunications services (up by around 40% from Ofcom’s c.£1,400 figure in 2016).

The ISP, which obviously has a vested interest in catering for such demand, believes this increase has been largely driven by the need for SMEs to keep pace with new emerging digital services such as cloud, the Internet of Things (IoT), advances in fibre optic Ethernet / broadband communications and now the roll-out of 5G mobile.

However the survey also found that some SMEs received a “poor” service and nearly two thirds (65%) are said to be considering switching services over the next 12 months. In fairness we see a similar sort of switching sentiment among consumer broadband connections, although Ofcom’s data tends to indicate that ultimately only around 10-15% actually do switch each year.

Overall SMEs with fixed lines reported the highest percentage describing the service they receive as poor (13%), followed by 10% for mobile phones (work) and 8% for their internet service at work.

Meanwhile 75% are considering upgrading their services but, in fairness, most would usually answer in the affirmative when asked if they were merely “considering” such a thing and the figures vary when split down by connection type.