Business broadband post code lottery

Reliable business broadband services are still unattainable for many in the UK

Over the past few years it hardly seems a month goes by without another press article about failing rural broadband projects and the resulting embarrassment to the government. Back in 2010 the culture secretary at the time (Jeremy Hunt) announced that Britain would lead Europe in broadband by 2015. This has clearly fallen well short of expectations even though around £1.2B of public money has been invested by our Government to deliver broadband projects.

Although there has been a lot of focus on the lack of rural broadband only last week I saw a TV news item on the local London news that residents in London are getting widely varying levels of broadband speed depending on which street they live in. The survey was conducted by uSwitch and it is clear from their results you do not need to move out of the city to be a poor broadband relation.

In 2011 the Government announced that 90 percent of UK premises would achieve 24Mbps or higher by May this year with the remaining premises achieving a minimum of 2Mbps. However, in June 2013 the schedule was revised to a commitment to 95 percent of homes getting access to 24Mbps broadband by 2017.

”…in 2014 an Ofcom report stated that Britain had the best broadband in Europe… speed was not one of the parameters”

As if to rub salt into the wounds of those unable to get reasonable broadband, in 2014 an Ofcom report stated that Britain had the best broadband in Europe. Unfortunately only four other countries featured in the comparison and speed was not one of the parameters considered. At the same time Which? were reporting that 45 percent of people in the UK suffered with slow internet access.

The majority of the reports I have seen refer to broadband services affecting the domestic user’s experience. I fail to see how we can discriminate between domestic and business broadband based on location alone. Many of us use our broadband service for business and pleasure regardless of where we choose to live, or for that matter where we choose to take our holidays. Many of us just need a good quality, business broadband grade service wherever we are. While on the subject of delivering good quality and reliable business broadband into UK holiday resorts and parks, this has been a personal challenge for at least half of my working life. More on that in a later blog, but for now back business broadband in general.

”…our MD Steve Hodges attended a telecoms industry… in the Houses of Parliament”

Earlier this month our MD Steve Hodges attended a telecoms industry event as a guest of Channel Telecom. At the event – held in the resplendent Churchill Rooms in the Houses of Parliament – the Secretary of State for Media Sajid Javid expressed the view that the telecoms industry has put up with Government inaction on the road to digital transformation for too long. He also referred to the information super highway as a vital piece of our infrastructure and suggested that the UK had been left standing on the hard shoulder while the world accelerated away. One thing for sure is that whichever party is elected into Government later this year, our UK wide, broadband post code lottery needs to be addressed. Otherwise our nation will be in no fit state to compete on a global stage.

As I mentioned in my last blog, SMEs are a serious force in the UK. We need to enable SMEs to survive and thrive and this needs efficient and reliable communications. Speaking as someone who has been working in an SME for thirty years I know for sure that I could not afford to move to anywhere in the UK that did not have good quality broadband. Furthermore, I cannot afford to take a holiday anywhere unless I have access to reliable broadband.

Every one of our team needs to be able to work from home at some time. As an SME in the service industry our product is our people. Our people need access to our customer networks and our core systems at all times of the day and night. We depend on flexible working to enable us to deliver the service our customers expect from us. It also enables us to attract and employ key staff, including those with family commitments.

When we are employing new team members, especially in our engineering team, the lack of access to a good broadband service at their home would limit their ability to support our customers and would, therefore, affect our decision as to whether to employ that person.

”…Even properties in our major cities are failing to achieve the minimum Government broadband speeds of 2Mbps.”

When the Government refer to leaving five percent of premises in the UK achieving minimal broadband speeds of 2Mbps we could be forgiven for assuming they are referring to rural areas. Unfortunately, as the uSwitch survey highlights, this is not the case. Even properties in our major cities are failing to achieve the minimum Government broadband speeds of 2Mbps. There is huge contrast in the survey results with some locations with the fastest broadband in the country only a few streets away from premises among the slowest.

Rotherhithe – London SE16 – is one of the worst areas in the capital for broadband speed – literally just across the Thames from the dense commercial area of Canary Wharf. Some properties in Rotherhithe achieve only 2Mbps download speed and are unable to stream media files without excessive buffering. Five miles away in south west London one of the properties surveyed in Brixton achieved the worst download speeds in London at only 1.4Mbps. In contrast, one of the properties surveyed in Barnet, north London achieved 64Mbps download.

”… many people could not afford to be without reliable high speed internet access, especially if they depend on the connectivity for their livelihood.”

Some people in the survey had expressed fears that a lack of high speed broadband will affect house prices. I would say these fears are well founded. As I mentioned above, many people could not afford to be without reliable high speed internet access, especially if they depend on the connectivity for their livelihood.

Broadband speed test results are affected by so many parameters from the device being used to conduct the test right through to the server hosting the test application. Self-service tests are a guide at best as the test environment is far from controlled. Although much of the broadband experience is beyond the end user’s control there are some aspects within our premises that we can improve. In the next blog I will look in more detail at where performance problems can and do occur and in the third blog in this series I will examine some of the options available should you find yourself in premises with poor broadband performance or, if you are really unfortunate, no broadband capability at all.

Useful links…

• Channel Telecom – click here
• Comms Dealer – Minister promises government support for the telecoms industry – click here
• uSwitch broadband speed test street statistics – click here