Many rural businesses suffer from poor broadband speeds. Here's why...

There are many reasons why a businesses broadband might be slow, but these reasons are particularly amplified if your premises is based in the countryside.

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Distance from cabinet

The most common cause of slow rural broadband that we find is the distance to the cabinet. Businesses in rural locations are often very far away from their nearest green street cabinet. This can cause issue because the data has a physically further distance to travel.

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The solution

The reality is that there is no easy way to fix this issue. Even if the cabinet was upgraded to a fibre connection, the realities of FTTC (Fibre to the Cabinet) mean that you will still lose speed and reliability. However, you could upgrade to a leased line. Leased lines are a dedicated fibre connection, right from your door. And you could even benefit from our Government-certified voucher scheme, offering up to £2,500 off your leased line installation.

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Poor mobile coverage

Poor mobile signal and speeds is a very real problem for rural businesses. Lack of mobile coverage can mean that disaster recovery solutions, or mobile phones are unreliable.

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The solution

There is a fairly simple fix to this issue, but it does not guarantee results - switch your mobile provider. Switching mobile provider may improve your connectivity as different mobile providers have different coverage areas. Another solution may be to have a multi-network SIM. These are SIM cards that connect to the strongest available network, ensuring that you always have the best connection possible,

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Older infrastructure

An obvious issue with rural broadband is the age of the infrastructure. Inner-city locations often get broadband upgrades frequently, with new infrastructure and cabling being added all the time. However, rural locations often have to use the same broadband environment for years and years - meaning that the physical network hardware is out of date and old.

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The solution

With Openreach and other broadband providers expanding the network and adding more and more hardware, there is a strong chance that rural businesses may be upgraded in the near future. Until then, there is not much anyone can do about old broadband infrastructure. One option may be 4G mobile broadband, rather than fixed line broadband. 4G broadband uses a LTE connection, rather than your fixed line hardware, which may suit businesses whose hardware is out of date.