Gigaclear Claim 1 in 5 Brits Wait 30 Mins for a Web Page to Load

Rural full fibre broadband ISP Gigclear has posted the results of an interesting new survey, which questionably claims that a fifth of British people wait “over half an hour for a simple web page to load” and 1 in 10 are “left buffering for up to two and a half hours.” Hmm.

At this point we should say that Gigaclear haven’t said when, where or how their survey (here) was conducted and nor have they revealed any information about who or how many people responded (demographics, connection types etc.). We think these are important questions to ask because, at first glance, the headline claims don’t make much sense.

Unless you’re still on a dialup line from 20+ years ago, a “simple web page” will not normally leave you waiting 30 minutes+ to load. In fact, using the front page of ISPreview.co.uk as an example of a fairly “simple page” (c.1MB in total size), even a 50Kbps dialup connection from the late 1990s should be able to finish loading that in about 3 minutes. But these days even some of the very slowest sub-1Mbps lines are still several times faster than that and only a tiny proportion of people are stuck with those.

Likewise, we have an issue with the claim that 1 in 10 people are left buffering for up to 2:30 hours. The vast majority of us would quickly stop trying to watch and admit defeat if a stream ever started buffering for longer than a few seconds (some platforms will auto-fail completely if this goes on for more than 1 minute – experiences vary). Lest we forget that buffering can also be caused by issues other than speed, such as DNS, CDN or routing/peering faults.

At this point we assume that Gigaclear MUST be missing out some crucial context. For example, maybe by “buffering” they actually mean “downloading” (a subtle but very important distinction). Similarly, it’s possible that the reference to waiting 30 minutes+ for a web page to load is a total value of accumulated time, as measured over a longer period (a week, a month?), but they don’t say.

Key Highlights from Gigaclear’s Survey

* One HD film in rural areas takes an average of 55 minutes to download – almost twice as long as in urban areas.

* 70% of people regularly have problems with their internet, with over a quarter losing connection entirely several times a week, and almost 10% losing access every single day.

* 1 in 10 UK adults admit to feeling very stressed every single time they use their internet. With the average Brit using the internet for almost 5 hours each working day, this means that many are feeling stressed for almost half the day, every day, due to poor broadband.

* A quarter of Brits admit that broadband speeds have had a detrimental effect on their family lives. One in five say the internet has had a negative effect on their finances, with “many” also feeling the effect on their careers and their physical health.  One in ten have introduced family rotas for internet usage to reduce stress levels.

* 27% of UK households have a minimum of three people using the internet at any one time.

* On average, Brits have 6 different smart devices connected to their internet service at any one time. The most common devices are laptops (54%), followed by phones (50%) and tablets (48%).

As usual there are also some familiar problems with saying that “70% of people regularly have problems with their internet.” In short, this could equally be a reflection of consumer choice (e.g. taking a slower / cheaper package, when faster options may exist), slow WiFi, other local network problems or performance issues with remote internet servers (i.e. not your ISP’s fault). Sadly, we don’t get a clear definition of what is meant by “regularly“, so take with the usual pinch of salt.

Gareth Williams, CEO at Gigaclear, said:

“The research clearly demonstrates the significant impact that poor broadband speeds are having on people’s lives. Given the majority of the British workforce is at home, either working or on furlough, the pressures on the internet continue to increase.

That being said, there is a huge gap between expectations and performance. Modern consumers have come to expect a certain level of connectivity, but for some broadband providers, the strain this is putting on performance is too much, and they simply can’t keep up. This needs to change.”

Gigaclear of course has a vested interest here because they’re currently deploying 1Gbps capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) networks across some fairly remote rural areas, which – despite some very lengthy delays – is usually a very welcome broadband improvement, once it actually goes live.