Family Arguments Over Broadband Rise During COVID-19 Crisis

A new online survey of 2,005 UK people has found that 36% of “millennials” who live with a partner have had an argument over who is to blame for slow broadband since the COVID-19 lockdown began. Likewise it’s a similar story in millennial family homes, with 33% bickering with their parents or children.

The survey, which was conducted by Atomik Research on behalf of Moneyexpert.com, noted that 51% of Brits are using the internet to keep in touch with loved ones, to entertain themselves (55%) and to keep up with the ever-changing news (61%) during the crisis.

Despite this the survey claims that the “biggest broadband frustrations for the millions of Brits” now working from home include an inconsistent connection (22%), slower downloads (18%) and the internet cutting out for no reason at all (18%). Virtual video meetings were also allegedly found to be “causing the biggest headache for homeworkers,” with 42% missing meetings due to a poor internet connection.

Sadly the survey, like so many others before it, misses an opportunity to delve more deeply into the problems. For example, it would be useful to examine whether the performance and connectivity issues are related to their broadband ISP or something more common, such as slow WiFi, local network issues or a poor choice of internet package (e.g. picking a cheaper and slower option when something faster was available).

Ultimately if one positive does come out of the COVID-19 crisis then it may be to encourage more people to think seriously about how much broadband speed they actually need at home, which could help to facilitate future upgrades and thus a rise in demand for even faster connectivity.