Would you move house for faster broadband?
Few of us would move house for faster broadband alone, but the prospect of better connectivity could swing a finely balanced decision
Back in July, a survey of four thousand people across the UK revealed a surprising fact.
A lack of high-speed internet connectivity was cited as the third most common reason for young people looking to move away from rural areas to more urban ones.
While you might have expected young country dwellers to cite a lack of career opportunities or poor access to services, broadband speeds could seem an unlikely motivator.
Yet two thirds of young rural residents – and over a third of the entire rural population – felt sluggish connectivity was a reason to consider moving to a town or city within the next year.
That might come as a surprise if you’re reading this in a metropolis, where lightning-fast connectivity is taken for granted.
Yet the countryside is littered with notspots and blackspots, where satellite broadband may be the only route to high-speed connectivity.
However, these blackspots aren’t necessarily the biggest challenge to going online in the countryside…
Reliability survey
Another surprise from the Strand Partners survey was the fact that 48 per cent of rural residents reported connectivity problems several times a week.
This wasn’t diagnosed in greater detail, but problems could include dropped connections, interference, buffering and latency, or simply inadequate bandwidth.
The majority of respondents said poor connectivity was hindering their ability to work from home, which is particularly problematic away from offices and public transport links.
Rural residents arguably need high-speed internet access more than anyone, since they don’t have supermarkets and offices nearby, or a variety of suburban rail/metro/bus services.
Admittedly, the survey made no attempt to determine whether these issues could be mitigated with a switch to a rival provider – assuming people would even be willing to change network.
Full fibre broadband companies have largely covered urban areas and are now rolling out infrastructure across less profitable rural regions, albeit in a patchy and inconsistent manner.
Your chances of having access to full fibre often depend on local altnets, working across their home turf to equalise urban and rural connectivity.
In the absence of a full fibre connection at the end of your driveway, it’s perhaps unsurprising that people trapped on ADSL lines may be tempted to move house for faster broadband.
After all, over 98 per cent of newly-built homes have full fibre broadband as standard, with most urban dwellings linked into at least one high-speed network.
You’re as likely to leave a new homes sales centre with a broadband flyer as a site plan and price list.
Few households would relocate purely for connectivity, but it’s a factor many of us now consider, which is why so many resale property listings mention achievable download speeds.
But I like my current house!
There may be steps you can take to avoid the need to move house for faster broadband.
Firstly, investigate if independent ISPs like Virgin Media have cabled (or are planning to cable) your neighbourhood with connections faster than existing Openreach lines.
Look into satellite broadband. Latency makes it unsuitable for gamers, regular video callers and people who need a stable connection to do their jobs, but it but it’s increasingly a worthy option.
Even replacing your ISP-supplied router or hardwiring key devices via Ethernet could make the most of whatever connectivity exists.
Avoiding the internet rush hour may help, as might conducting uploads and system updates overnight, avoiding large email attachments and streaming in standard definition rather than HD.
