Rural workers need fast broadband for better efficiency
Fast broadband is essential for workers in rural parts of the UK to work efficiently, new research has suggested.
According to a study by Europasat, rural workers waste 16 minutes every day while waiting for their slow internet connection to respond. This adds up to nine days each year that are lost because of poor broadband services.
In a survey of 1,000 people who worked in rural areas, just under half (49 per cent) said that broadband was not given enough attention in their locality. Furthermore, eight in 10 (79 per cent) said that a faster, more reliable internet connection would provide a significant boost to their day-to-day working.
The study also found that rural workers believe there is a disconnect between the cities and the countryside, with urban areas given priority over more remote locations.
Welsh hill farmer Gareth Wyn Jones, who farms Ty’n Llwyfan Farm on the hills above Llanfairfechan in Snowdonia, illustrated the problem: “They have been promising us 4G network coverage here forever, but we only have 3G.
“If you go into the next village, you get no mobile phone reception at all. It’s dead. You won’t ever get a phone signal – nevermind broadband.”
The findings comes as the government and internet service providers (ISPs) have been debating how to better connect the UK's towns and villages that are currently without superfast broadband. The government is aiming for 95 per cent of the country's population to have access to superfast broadband by the end of 2017, but concerns now surround the remaining five per cent that could overlooked.
These remote, hard to reach places will require a lot of funding if the infrastructure is to be installed - the government has created a committee to explore how best to tackle this issue, while ISPs have also been asked to foot the bill with the introduction of a new industry levy.
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