Broadband ‘modern-day essential’

Broadband is now seen as a modern-day essential alongside things like food, housing, water and energy, new research from Which? shows.

Nine in 10 of the 2,000 people polled by the consumer group rank broadband as being essential to their day-to-day lives, and more essential than mobile phones and TVs.

Housing, energy, food and water were ranked as more essential than broadband, but the number of people who regard it as essential (90 per cent) was higher than it was for having a mobile phone (74 per cent), a TV (73 per cent), savings (70 per cent), running a car (68 per cent) and pension contributions (53 per cent).

But despite the importance of broadband to the vast majority of people, two-thirds said they’ve had problems with their broadband in the last year, with slower speeds and connection drop-outs cited as the main issues.

Three in 10 also said they were getting download speeds below 10MB per second - the speed the government says meets the demands of a typical family and small businesses for their daily use.

Alex Neill, Which? managing director of home and legal services, said: “This research underlines again just how important broadband is to our everyday lives. Yet many of us are still experiencing persistent service interruptions and a large proportion of the population can’t access usable speeds to carry out the most basic tasks.

“The government must urgently press ahead with its reforms to give us the faster and more reliable broadband connections we all need.”

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(Image: Kings Sutton)