UK Home Movers Go Without Broadband for Average of 7.2 Days

A new Opinium survey of 500 UK adults who have moved house in the last 2 years (renters or owners), which was commissioned by Uswitch, has found that broadband is still “one of the biggest causes of frustration” when moving home – with movers being left offline for an average of 7.2 days.

Moving home, particularly if you have a larger pad with a lot of stuff to shift, can be a stressful experience. One area of known disruption is in how the change impacts our home broadband connections and speeds, since it often takes time to get a new internet (and or phone) service setup or migrated.

The survey, which was conducted between 26th and 29th August 2023, found that 45% of movers stayed with their existing broadband ISP when moving, but were still forced offline for an average of 6.5 days. More than one in ten (11%) movers who stayed with the same ISP were left offline for two weeks or more.

Suffice to say that it’s no real surprise to find that 70% of home movers felt “being without [the] internet was a top bugbear“, ahead of more traditional frustrations including packing and unpacking (67%), delays to completion dates (64%) and dealing with estate agents (54%).

However, a lot of people today do have mobile broadband (4G and 5G) via their Smartphone, which is how 48% of movers said they got online during the process. Some 22% bought extra data on top of their normal allowance to stay online, with 10% using over 50GB (GigaBytes) while waiting to be connected. Just for context, Ofcom reports that the average monthly data volume per household on fixed broadband connections is 482GB.

Additional Survey Findings

➤ The research shows that time spent offline varied across the country, with the regions waiting the longest including Scotland (12.6 days), the East of England (10.3 days) and the West Midlands (9 days). In contrast, the fastest switchovers were in the North East (4.9 days), London (5.1 days) and the South West (5.5 days).

➤ Movers give their broadband providers 13.5 days’ notice on average ahead of a move in date, slightly less than the absolute minimum required by providers, with many asking for two, three or even four weeks. One in five (18%) left their switch to the last minute, only giving providers one week of notice, and one in ten (9%) waited until after they moved

➤ Giving more notice to your ISP didn’t always appear to pay off, as even those who gave 2+ weeks of notice spent an average of 7.1 days disconnected, while those who waited until after moving in were stuck offline for 10.3 days.

➤ 21% of respondents said their ability to work from home was disrupted by the move (obviously), while 15% found themselves unable to manage life admin tasks such as paying bills.

➤ Home movers were also inconvenienced by an inability to stream TV or films (40%), not being able to check emails (30%) or social media (27%), and not being able to stay in touch with friends and family (20%).

Moving house tends to be one of life’s most expensive and stressful experiences, although there’s often a limit to how fast you can get a new broadband connection setup in your new home – this will vary due to lots of different factors.

Some of those issues will take longer to resolve than others, such as if you’re moving into a new build property and find the new address isn’t yet recognised by your broadband ISP. Such issues can take months to resolve naturally, but often a call to your chosen provider and the Royal Mail (here) will help to sort things out more quickly.

Delays may also creep in if the previous owner is still in the process of cancelling their existing service when you move in, while those migrating between ISPs on the same platform may similarly have to allow a week or so for the switching process to run its course. Some of this is by design and gives people a chance to stop SLAMMING, which occurs when a service is migrated without the owner’s consent (due either to error or fraudulently).

Not to mention that if you need a new line installed on a new network, then it can take extra time to sort all of that out. So, if you need to move quickly, then as a general rule it’s wise to have a backup ready to help tide you over until the new service goes live. Most of the time a good unlimited 4G or 5G based mobile broadband connection will do an adequate job, assuming that’s an option (check the coverage of each operator beforehand).

All the big ISPs are familiar with home movers by now, and it’s worth remembering that most of those will also be subject Ofcom’s automatic compensation scheme, which pays out if there are any delays to a new service going live. Suffice to say, those providers won’t want to keep you waiting too long, as it’s in their interest to get you online as quickly as possible.

However, in a lot of cases and provided you plan it well enough, then many people are often still able to get online on more or less the day they move in.