FAMILIES AT WAR over the BROADBAND
Home internet use has soared, exposing the UK’s creaking system and sparking a new domestic battleground . . .
THE poor internet connection in Fiona Scott’s house has been the cause of many arguments since the lockdown began. Each day, the family of five must decide who gets priority as their broadband cannot cope with them all using it at once.
The Scotts are not alone, they are just one of the many families plagued by broadband problems while stuck at home.
Fiona, 54, a media consultant from Swindon in Wiltshire, says she is regularly disconnected from important video meetings if another member of household connects to the internet on another device. Her husband Steve, also 54, works in telecoms from home, while her children Sammi, 20, Georgia, 18, and David, 13, have university and school work to complete.
She says: ‘If David is having a Spanish or maths lesson via video, I can’t get cross. But it is hard when I am being paid by the hour for my time and it takes three hours to do something because I keep getting cut off.’
Experts say the pandemic has exposed the antiquated state of Britain’s infrastructure and are urging ministers to press ahead with vital improvements.
Home broadband usage has now gone up to an average 41 hours a week — a rise of almost a third (29 pc) since lockdown, according to comparison site Uswitch. And one in five households experienced problems with their internet last month.
Slow speeds and a poor connection were the most common problems reported, with just under half of those affected saying their internet has cut out at times. A third say they were often unable to get online at all.
Complaints to online dispute service Resolver about broadband have also doubled since lockdown. Two months ago it would deal with about 200 cases a week, but by the last week of April it was 484.
The average UK household has up to five devices — iPads, laptops or smartphones — connected to the net at the same time. For families, this rises to seven, Uswitch says.
To stream a film on Netflix, you would usually need a broadband speed of at least three megabits per second (Mbps). Standard broadband packages typically offer 10-11 Mbps.
Watchdog Ofcom has said about 189,000 UK properties are unable to get more than 10Mbps. As of March, households and businesses can request an upgraded connection if they cannot get this.
Ultra-fast fibre broadband can offer average speeds of 300 Mbps. The UK Government pledged to bring full fibre internet to 15 million British households by 2025, and to the whole of the UK by 2033. But Covid-19 has slowed this. The launch of the ultra-fast 5G mobile network has also been hit.
But Fiona, who pays Three Broadband £25 a month for 25Mbps average speed, says connections are often worse in the afternoon. If one or two of them are online, others cannot even send an email. She has had to confiscate her children’s phones after finding they had been streaming television programmes in the day.
Fiona says: ‘We have had to stagger daytime activity. It has caused many arguments.’
Three Broadband says the Scotts usually get speeds of 20-60Mbps which is good for day-to-day activities and video conferences. But it has offered to investigate. A spokesman says: ‘We are seeing an increased demand on our network. Our teams are working hard to maintain capacity and keep everyone connected.’
Social media consultant Anna Rump, 38, had no issues with her Virgin Media broadband before lockdown, but now has a ‘glitchy’ service that halts video meetings and freezes her work documents.
Anna, of Norwich, says: ‘I have no business without the internet.’
She pays £38 a month for fibre broadband which should run at an average 108Mbps. A Virgin Media spokesman says the network is able to deal with extra demand but will send an engineer to Anna.
And Laura Dean’s provider Gigaclear boasts of ultrafast broadband in rural areas. Yet in lockdown only one person can use the internet at a time in her home in Aldermaston, Berkshire.
It means that Laura, who runs a travel firm, cannot update her website or post on social media while husband Adrian takes video calls. Laura, 38, says: ‘It gets bad from 8.30pm, and I can’t even load up my website.’ Gigaclear says that multiple devices using Wi-Fi simultaneously may lead to performance issues.
Jonathan Leggett, of comparison site Broadbandchoices, says Britain’s outage problem is partly due to a shortage of engineers but believes that the virus ‘has exposed the UK’s slow pace of infrastructure improvements’.
A spokesman for the UK Government’s Department of Culture, Media and Sport says: ‘We are determined to deliver on our gigabit commitment and are removing the barriers to industry, accelerating broadband rollout and investing £5 billion so the hardest to reach areas aren’t left behind.’