Poor quality internet stops 4m working from home

SLOW broadband and dire mobile phone reception is preventing up to four million people from working at home, a survey has found.

Businesses are increasingly offering flexible contracts which allow employees to work where they choose.

But a new report suggests that poor service from telecoms providers is making it almost impossible for many people to work remotely.

A quarter of employees have had issues with their internet or mobile when working from home over the last year, and 46 per cent said the problems they experienced put them off trying to do so in future.

According to the poll of more than 2,000 adults by comparison website uSwitch, these prob-

lems resulted in one in five respondents losing business and 16 per cent missing deadlines.

The most common complaint was that internet speeds were too slow to get work done. A third of mobile users complained reception was patchy, and one in ten complained they could not get signal at all.

MPs and consumers have been fiercely critical of telecoms giants for providing poor service, particularly in rural areas.

A survey published last week named and shamed BT, Sky, EE and TalkTalk – which make up 72 per cent of the market – for providing the worst service.

Consumer group Which? said frequent price rises, unreliable connections and ‘woeful’ customer service contributed to the scale of negative feedback.

‘Connection speeds are too slow’