Government funding for broadband is insufficient

Demand for reliable and secure broadband connection surged during the pandemic and shows no signs of slowing; driven by virtual classrooms and offices as well as video streaming and gaming. However, the pandemic has also made many across the UK realise that their connectivity is not sufficient for working or learning from home, with frequent cut-outs and buffering. 75% of respondents of the Telecoms.com annual survey believe that government funding for broadband is insufficient.  I’m Natalie, the General Manager here at RPS, and I’m going to explore why widespread broadband is vital, which areas need investment and how the telecoms industry fared throughout the pandemic. 

The majority of businesses are still either working from home or have implemented flexible working, and it is therefore vital they have stable broadband access for the business and their employees.

Demand for broadband services since the pandemic has increased rapidly. This demand for internet service providers has resulted in much longer wait times for customers; orders which would usually take a couple of weeks were taking months. Additionally, there has also been a high increase in faults raised on broadband services; as the world became more dependent, people started to notice issues more regularly.

Openreach is currently rolling out faster and more reliable broadband, aiming to make it available to 25 million by 2026. To put that in perspective, around 5% of broadband services in the UK are FTTP.