Survey Claims 43% of UK Pensioners Struggle to Pay for Internet Access

A new study of 1,500 London based pensioners, which was conducted by Perspectus Global in July 2022 and commissioned by Age UK and ISP CommunityFibre, has claimed that 43% of those over the age of 60 are “struggling to pay for internet access” via broadband and mobile data services as a result of the cost-of-living crisis.

The survey later clarifies that the 43% represents those over the age of 60 who have “struggled to keep up with broadband and mobile phone payments and will run out of data before the end of the month“, which is slightly confusing as nearly all fixed broadband packages today offer “unlimited” usage. On this point, the survey should really have separated its questions about mobile and fixed line services.

The research also claims that 14% of over-60s in London experienced loneliness due to being offline or not having access to social media and WhatsApp. To get by day-to-day, 71% of people over 60 in London agree that having internet access is essential to modern life.

As we’ve said before, it’s worth noting that broadband connectivity remains a relatively small cost next to the currently obscene prices for things like petrol, gas, weekly food shopping and electricity etc. At the same time, the cost of mobile broadband data has actually come down dramatically over the past few years, which somewhat bucks the trend of other utility services (i.e. you get more for your money).

Broadband is also an extremely important service and one that can help you save money on other products and services; thus, it could be argued that a modern internet connection more than pays for itself in the value it returns. But if somebody is struggling to pay for broadband, then it follows that they’ve probably got more fundamental problems with their other and much bigger bills (e.g. electricity and gas) to worry about.

The government and Ofcom have of course been trying to tackle such issues by encouraging broadband ISPs to launch cheaper Social Tariffs for those on benefits. But Age UK has pointed out that pensioners are often excluded from these, because Universal Credit (UC) is only available to those under the age of 67, and those on very low incomes are only eligible to claim Pension Credit rather than UC, so are not eligible on all the tariffs.

Naturally, CommunityFibre’s survey has a vested interest here as they’re keen to plug their Essential 10Mbps package, which costs just £12.50 a month on a 12-month contract (this includes a Linksys WiFi 5 mesh router and free installation) and is available to all new customers. The ISP originally launched it as a social tariff in 2021, but that requirement was lifted when it was relaunched this year.

The catch with CommunityFibre is that their new FTTP broadband network is currently only available to parts of London.