West Midlands businesses struggling with poor broadband

The economy in the West Midlands is suffering because businesses are having to put up with poor broadband speeds, according to the results of a new survey.

Daisy Group discovered that the average worker cannot do their job for up to an hour every week because their connection runs so slowly or drops out altogether, with 11 per cent experiencing downtime 13 times in every seven-day period.

More than a third of respondents revealed that their home broadband is faster than that they can access at work.

With the average employee losing 52 hours of productivity a year because of their internet access, Daisy Group estimates that the West Midlands is missing out on £1.2 billion of annual productivity.

Product Manager for Data Networks Jan Wielenga said the situation is simply unacceptable.

"The internet going down or running slowly for an hour every week doesn't sound much, but the result of any loss of productivity is that businesses suffer financially," she added.

Earlier this month, Which? revealed that smaller internet service providers are more likely to deliver a more positive customer experience than their larger competitors,so switching may be the answer for these beleaguered businesses.