Poor Wi-Fi coverage in British homes forces consumers to pay £2.2bn annually to compensate for their patchy connections, new research suggests. uk wi-fi

Around 85 per cent of home owners and renters in Britain have experienced problems connecting to their home Wi-Fi, with each person on average spending £153 each year on additional mobile data to access the internet.

Britons pay for an extra 2.2GB of mobile data each month, equating to 30GB at a total cost of £153 over the course of a year, according to a study from the HomeOwners Alliance and real estate connectivity certifier WiredScore.

Browsing the web and social media were highlighted as the most significant hinderances to a home’s connectivity, while streaming TV programmes and films alongside working from home were the main reasons for purchasing additional data.

“Decent broadband connectivity is vital for millions of people who work from home either full-time or for part of their week, and many more rely on Wi-Fi for social contact, especially those in remote rural areas and those at home with an illness or disability,” said Paula Higgins, chief executive of the HomeOwners Alliance.

Three-quarters of UK consumers frustrated by their Wi-Fi and  internet connection

“We advise all homebuyers to ask for evidence of Wi-Fi connectivity before moving home.”

The average home broadband download speed reached over 50 Mbps (Megabits per second) for the first time in 2018, according to industry watchdog Ofcom, though significant differences between performance strength between urban and rural areas – where coverage is still often poor – remains.

Download speeds increased 18 per cent on the previous year to 54.2 Mbps, while average upload speeds increased by 15 per cent to 7.2 Mbps, it found, attributed to more widespread availability and take-up of superfast and ultrafast fibre and cable broadband services.

Around 95 per cent of UK homes and offices were offered predicted download speeds of at least 30 Mbps by January this year. uk wi-fi

TalkTalk and Tesco Mobile were named the broadband and mobile providers with the lowest levels of customer satisfaction, according to a recent survey from Ofcom.

The communications regulator assessed UK service quality, call waiting times, complaints and install times among the country’s internet service providers (ISPs) and mobile operators, and found TalkTalk scored below the industry average on “several measures”.

While Tesco Mobile scored lowest in terms of customer satisfaction for mobile networks, it was also among the network customers were most likely to recommend to a friend, alongside SIM-only network Giffgaff.