Study Claims London SMEs Missing Out on £28bn in Revenue Due to Poor Broadband

A new survey of 250 business leaders from London’s smaller and medium-sized firms, which was conducted by Censuswide and Development Economics for UK broadband ISP G.Network, has claimed that SMEs are missing out on an estimated £28bn in annual revenue due to “slow and unreliable workplace broadband“.

According to the polling, 52% of senior leaders and business owners among London’s SMEs have considered moving office location in order to get better access to faster and more reliable workplace internet, with 4 in 10 stating they can’t serve clients in the way they’d like due to problems with slow or unreliable office internet.

Furthermore, a quarter of respondents admitted that problems with slow or unreliable broadband have caused them to lose business, while 47% identified employee connectivity in the workplace as an area undermined by poor connectivity and over 40% said that their ability to serve customers suffered.

The polling claims that these “broadband issues” have also negatively affected productivity for a quarter of all employees at the capital’s SME-size businesses over the last three months. The estimated annual lost output due to these broadband issues is put at £5.34bn Gross Value Added (GVA).

On the flip side, SMEs identified quicker response times to clients and customers as two of the key benefits they could reap from improved office broadband connectivity. The study claims that the high costs and complex processes involved in securing reliable services remain “prohibitive for many SMEs“, although this does somewhat depend upon what each business actually requires.

Kevin Murphy, CEO of G.Network, said:

“Digital connectivity is at the heart of London’s economy, but despite extensive availability the SMEs we spoke to for the research are still suffering because connections are too costly and complicated. As an SME ourselves, we understand the challenges they’re facing, and we’re determined to put an end to slow internet speeds. Whether we are serving a hairdresser or a hedge fund, our mission is to provide businesses of all sizes with the reliable gigabit connectivity essential for their success.”

The survey fails to identify whether all the connectivity issues experienced are actually related to the underlying broadband link or local network issues within the office, but we suspect it’s probably a combination of both. In addition, it appears to overlook the importance of having effective redundancy for main link disruption, which when correctly implemented should be able to mitigate a lot of the negative impacts upon revenue.

Some other issues that could do with being explored further in the survey centre around the availability of network choice and take-up. Much of London does have a fair choice of different network providers (e.g. Openreach, Virgin Media, CommunityFibre, Hyperoptic, G.Network etc.) and so if one ISP is performing poorly then there are often other, potentially better, options already available. But London does still have some patches of poor connectivity too.

Naturally G.Network, which claims to have covered a total of 330k “connectable premises“ in the city with their own full fibre network (an independent estimate in July 2024 put them closer to 250k), has a vested interest in surveys like this because they encourage businesses to consider alternative providers.