Andy Frobisher, a marketing manager from Cumbria, said he relied on a “reasonable connection” to do his job, but that his internet had been dropping out as many as seven times a day. “Things like that are embarrassing,” he said.
Others have faced more traumatic outages. “My mum had connectivity issues which meant that she was unable to even virtually attend the funeral of my great uncle,” said Rachel Sumner, a professor at the University of Gloucester.
Hundreds of Sky broadband customers experienced problems with their connections earlier this month, and late last week, thousands reported they were unable to work from home after TalkTalk’s network went down for around an hour.
BT broadband users also suffered an hours-long outage on January 31 which prevented many people from using the internet. And tens of thousands of Virgin Media customers complained of problems with their broadband connections at the end of April.
Slow internet speeds and frequent outages have been a particular problem for people living in rural areas who still rely on copper cables which can be affected by rainfall.
“Connectivity should certainly be right there at the top” of the Government’s list of topics to review following lockdown, said Sarah Lee, the head of policy at the Countryside Alliance.
“Coronavirus has shone a spotlight on the disparity of connectivity,’ she added, “for many businesses, that means relying on a lot of people on old copper networks. It really has a huge impact on people continuing to work.”
Under the existing proposals, the Government said it would invest £5bn in the networks through to 2025, to provide what was termed “gigabit-capable” broadband.
However, Fensom said: “We think the focus should move away from the notion of gigabit-capable. “That’s good to have but we need to build a resilient network…the way that the internet is structured in the UK, it falls well short of that.”
The term “gigabit-capable” refers to “coaxial” cables, which are a blend of copper and fibre, meaning operators may be allowed to roll those out across the UK, instead of the faster and more resilient full-fibre systems.
Broadband networks are also now calling on the Government to prioritise upgrades to the country’s internet infrastructure.