How to provide broadband in a holiday home

At one point or another, many families end up owning or being responsible for an unoccupied property.

It may be an inheritance from a relative, a property bought for student offspring who’ve now graduated, the result of two families moving in together, or a newly acquired investment property.

There are various ways to generate income from an unoccupied property, including selling it or entering into a long-term rental agreement with a respectable tenant.

Increasingly, people advertise empty dwellings as short-term rentals, capitalising on the meteoric growth of Airbnb and other self-catering platforms.

This can be far more lucrative than a long-term rental, though it requires more focus on areas like housekeeping and laundry, key handovers and – perhaps surprisingly – internet access.

In a long-term rental home, internet connectivity is the tenant’s responsibility. In a property being rented by the night, the landlord or owner is responsible.

And that poses various questions regarding broadband in a holiday home.

Is providing internet access cost-effective? What speeds should be offered? How can you make the network accessible? And what contract options deserve consideration?

We’ll look at these points in turn below.

Should owners provide broadband in a holiday home?

Our first question is the easiest to answer – yes, they should.

Many people are addicted to their smartphones, and connecting to WiFi will be a first step on arriving at any hotel or self-catering property.

Since first impressions count, broadband must be provided even if void periods mean you’re routinely paying for a connection nobody is using.

When tenants or guests do arrive, few will be angrier than a parent unable to get their child’s SIM-free iPad hooked up to WiFi to soothe post-travel fractiousness.

What speeds are required?

People rarely visit holiday homes to play MMORPGs or upload huge work documents, so a Fibre to the Cabinet connection ought to suffice.

This offers speeds of up to 65Mbps – more than enough to allow simultaneous streaming or surfing on multiple devices.

Nobody will book your short-term rental property because it’s advertised with full fibre broadband, and few guests will ever stretch high-bandwidth connections.

Keep overheads down by offering a slower line speed, albeit better than ADSL connections can offer. Their upload speeds in particular can be a recurrent source of frustration.

How can you make broadband networks accessible?

Choose an ISP with a good reputation for reliability, and restart the supplied router whenever you visit the property to ensure firmware is updated and optimal reliability is maintained.

Place WiFi details prominently in the hallway or main living space, ideally with a logon passcode which isn’t a convoluted string of upper and lowercase letters and numbers.

This may involve changing the default password – always a good idea to improve device security and prevent unwanted third parties from gaining access and draining bandwidth.

Ensure electronic devices left in the property (especially smart TVs/speakers/security systems) remain connected to the router at all times, ideally via Ethernet.

What sort of contract should I consider?

Holiday homes often occupy rural areas with limited connectivity, where full fibre broadband may not be available.

Mobile broadband through a MiFi dongle may be a better option for occasional visitors who probably won’t be spending much time indoors – or bringing many devices.

If the property could lie empty for long periods (such as over Christmas), short-term broadband contracts might be more cost-effective than annual ones.

We’d avoid setting any adult content filters which might block anything from YouTube viewing to online gaming sites – potentially causing embarrassment and annoyance to guests.