No Surprise – Hyperoptic Find Broadband Vital to Home Owners

City focused full fibre broadband ISP Hyperoptic has conducted a new survey of 228 housing professionals and 2,000 UK homeowners or renters, which unsurprisingly reveals that most respondents now consider good broadband connectivity to be the “4th utility” alongside water, gas and electricity.

We should point out that SAY Property Consulting conducted the survey of 228 “housing professionals” (i.e. advisers and consultants were the largest group (26%), followed by developers (19%) and operators (18%)), while One Poll ran the survey of homeowners.

Overall 86% of the public agreed that having a “decent connection” in their property is “important” to them, whilst 64% said they would be “put off” by a home with slow Wi-Fi (an odd result since the user has the power to change that with ease) and 54% said they are “more likely” to purchase or move into a property with a “good internet connection“.

Sadly the survey doesn’t appear to have clearly defined what it meant by decent or good connectivity.

Summary of Survey Results

* 60% of respondents in the property industry rated ‘reliable, fast, fibre connectivity’ as critical and ‘the fourth utility’, while 32% defined it as ‘a key attractor’ for buyers and renters.

* 62% of housing professionals described the industry as being ‘slow’ or ‘very slow’ to introduce technologies including fibre optic broadband and smart energy saving devices, with 28% stating that such things had been brought in as and when they were viable.

* 66% of those in the property industry described ‘the internet’ as being the most important technology of the last hundred years.

* 35% of the public said their priorities have changed over the past 5 years when it comes to house hunting. For example, a quarter say they work from home on a regular basis and 47% want a decent broadband connection to keep in touch with their friends and family.

Charles Davies, MD ISP for Hyperoptic, said:

“The results show the level of importance both residents and the property sector places on reliable, fast broadband. Whilst talk of it being the ‘4th utility’ has been around for some time now, this research proves it’s no exaggeration. For those in the property sector, the message is simple – residents expect fast reliable broadband and providers such as Hyperoptic are on hand to install lightning-fast services at no cost to them.”

A full copy of Hyperoptic’s related White Paper for this survey can be found on their website (here).