Research: UK digital divide is real
May 30, 2019
Research by satellite broadband provider bigblu, in partnership with Konnect Europe, reveals that people living in UK rural areas with low quality Internet must travel up to five miles to get connectivity. With more than a quarter of respondents unhappy with the quality of their current Internet provider, nearly three quarters (72 per cent) said this was because internet is too slow, while for more than half (60 per cent) said it’s because connectivity drops.
Rural residents often have no option but to travel for Internet access, costing them time and money. Rural areas in the UK are the most affected by poor quality Internet or blackspots with 19 per cent of respondents saying they can never work from home, 16 per cent can’t connect with friends and family, while 15 per cent are unable to shop online.
The most common way respondents connect is via broadband. In the UK, however, the digital divide is a real concern, according to bigblu, with what it describes as “shocking” gaps in speeds between urban and rural environments making it a complicated task to get online. The minimum download speed that anyone can request is 10Mbps, however, there are over 350,000 households in the UK that have speeds lower than 5Mbps, with rural areas in Scotland, Northern Ireland and the South West being the biggest contenders with speeds even lower than 2Mbps.
“We live in an age where everything is connected, and we know that poor quality Internet is affecting people’s lives,” commented Andrew Walwyn, CEO, bigblu. “We are proud to serve the rural communities where satellite broadband is the best, and often the only option for good Internet connectivity. This way rural communities will be able to benefit from all the advantages that high-speed Internet brings, be that connecting with friends and family, working from home, or shopping online, nothing needs to be compromised’.
bigblu says it is on a mission to provide the best service and high-speed Internet in hard to reach places, connecting people, businesses, and professionals alike. It says that using the latest technologies, satellite broadband caters to the needs of those rural communities where fibre broadband is either unavailable or is too slow and unreliable.