Losing Broadband Places High on List of Top Inconveniences

A new Opinium survey has found that the loss of electricity for longer than 24 hours would be the biggest “inconvenience” for those surveyed in the East of England (76%), which is followed by the broadband link going down (9%), fridge not working (8%), loss of central heating (5%) and the car failing to start (3%).

The survey, which was commissioned by rural UK ISP County Broadband and conducted in May 2020, involved 1,000 adults living in urban areas and 1,000 living in rural areas of England. The results also found that 59% of those surveyed in East Anglia are often left “frustrated by poor internet“. Meanwhile 28% said they need better broadband now, with the figure rising to 67% for those predicting it will need to be better by 2023.

As usual there isn’t much context provided in the results, such as to clarify whether or not those who are unhappy were living in an area where faster connection options already exist and if they’re even aware of that. Otherwise being frustrated by “poor internet” could also be just a reflection of an existing package choice or other issues, such as slow WiFi, rather than just the broadband link itself.

Nevertheless County Broadband’s vested interest here is obviously it to highlight the superior Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network they’re building in over 50 rural and remote villages across Essex, Norfolk and Cambridgeshire, with plans to connect 20,000 premises by Christmas 2020 following a £46 million private investment from Aviva Investors.

Lloyd Felton, CEO of County Broadband, said:

“The fact that fridges, central heating and cars – food, warmth and travel – have been overtaken by simply staying online suggests how our primeval instincts might be rapidly changing in the 21st century, and no doubt exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic.

From Zoom conferences and virtual work events, to 4K streaming and video gaming at home, we are not surprised by these findings which reveal just how vital fast and reliable broadband have become in our daily lives.

These changing modern habits are set against the lockdown exposing East Anglia’s rural poor digital infrastructure and urgent need for new Hyperfast full-fibre networks.

We’re playing our role in making our region a true flagbearer for world-class digital infrastructure by rolling out Hyperfast full-fibre broadband. We’ve catapulted thousands of residents and businesses overnight into the UK’s top 10% for digital connectivity and look forward to welcoming many thousands more to our growing network this year.”

As usual we should point out that FTTP services, while a massive improvement, are not completely immune to problems caused by issues such as network congestion, slow WiFi and routing / peering / DNS or other general faults.