Poor broadband has been the main problem for rural businesses for years. It often forces people to move to the city or give up completely. Although providers are trying to solve the problem, there’s no expected time for when rural businesses will be able to operate online as well as their urban counterparts.
The Institute of Directors (IoD) have brought this concern up frequently. Here are some of the reasons why fast broadband is essential in rural UK.
Cost
Even if you use a comparison service like www.thecomparison.co.uk it doesn’t guarantee value for money. You still pay the same prices as someone from the city. They get a great deal, but you have to contend with a failing connection and a slow download speed. As a business, you can’t afford for this to happen.
It’s essential to be available online in the 21st century. Customers won’t wait days for a reply to a message when they have the option of going elsewhere.
Marketing Backlog
In the countryside, you only have a very limited number of customers in your local area. The only option is to go online and market yourself. Broadband TV by Thecomparison.co.uk can offer a comprehensive range of services. If you have a spotty connection, though, any marketing campaign is already disadvantaged.
Go online and you will see companies constantly talking on social media and improving their Search Engine Optimization (SEO). A sustained campaign is how companies succeed. If you can only log on for a few hours each day, it isn’t good enough at all.
Fulfilling Orders
Many rural businesses rely on being able to fulfil orders quickly. It’s more difficult in these areas to send products away because post offices aren’t necessarily nearby. This applies even more to people living in remote areas.
To give a basic example, Amazon expects you to post most orders within a couple of days. If you don’t confirm shipment, your account rating suffers. Small businesses can’t meet this requirement without a constant connection.
Furthermore, even if they can fulfil standard postage orders, they can’t do next-day delivery. The connection isn’t stable enough and it’s bound to lead to a lot of missed orders. And this is assuming the connection constantly comes back on. Some places can lose connectivity for days in bad weather.
Bad Weather
Businesses are at the mercy of bad weather. Particularly extreme weather conditions will always bring down the broadband connection. It doesn’t matter how powerful it is. It should persist under most conditions, however. The weaker connections in rural Britain are more liable to damage during heavy winds and snowfall.
Since we have to deal with ever more extreme winters, this continues to be a persistent problem. Without a stronger connection, businesses could become unavailable for extended periods of time.
Overall, it makes operating an online business almost impossible in the countryside. The instability of the broadband makes businesses unable to meet orders and communicate with clients. In short, they can’t compete with their competition in the urban areas, which hinders growth.
Before Tim Miller purchased his broadband he went to broadband TV by TheComparison.co.uk (http://www.thecomparison.co.uk/).