Households in remote village ‘quoted £100,000 for WiFi upgrade’
Residents of a rural village where broadband speeds are just two per cent of the national average claim they were quoted £100,000 for a WiFi upgrade.
Households in Wingland, Lincolnshire, say they are forced to use 4G on their mobile phones to send emails, and struggle to stream films and TV shows or search the internet owing to WiFi issues.
The area’s current download speed of just 1Mb/s falls far below the 10Mb/s “decent and affordable connection”, which everyone in the UK has the right to request as part of the Government’s Universal Service Obligation (USO).
It also falls below 2 per cent of the average national broadband speed, which was 69.4Mbps in 2023.
However, Kevin and Lynda Mortimer, a retired couple who have rented a small cottage in the remote area for more than 30 years, were told by BT it would cost £101,874.60 to install a complex fibre network.
Mr Mortimer, a 62-year-old retired factory worker, told The Telegraph: “It was ridiculous. We’ve got to change our car this year and I don’t even know where we’re going to find the money for that, never mind bloody £100,000.
“I told them I obviously wasn’t going ahead with it, there’s no way I could afford that. I later got a call from the customer service department basically saying ‘That’s the price, like it or lump it’.”
BT said the sum “represents the cost of building a fibre connection to 10 eligible USO properties” in Mr Mortimer’s neighbourhood.
It said the quote also reflects the costs of planning, digging multiple kilometres of trenches and associated road closures in a rural area where no other company is willing to provide a service.
After BT Group’s contribution, the price would amount to around £8,500 per property if everyone agreed to contribute, the company added.
‘Completely outrageous’
Mr Mortimer said his broadband is so slow that when he wants to watch a film or TV programme online the picture quality is cut down while it loads, making the image blurry.
He and his wife are also forced to use his mobile data to send emails from his phone or iPad from their own home.
“If you try and put it on 4k, you can only watch about two seconds of anything,” he said.
“I also struggle to send and download emails sometimes. On our phones and iPads we’re constantly using 4G through our mobile phone contracts. But why should I have to pay for two different schemes?”
Another resident, 68-year-old Stephanie Copeland, also struggles with her WiFi connection and said the quote was “completely outrageous”.
“It feels so unfair. We pay our council tax like everyone else, but it feels like there is a feeling of, ‘Oh they are in the back of beyond, they don’t need it’,” she told the MailOnline.
She added: “And as for the suggestion we all contribute a bit - I certainly wouldn’t be willing to do that. Why should we? If you lived in the middle of King’s Lynn, which is the nearest large town, you wouldn’t have to. It’s simply not fair.
“I am not forking out another penny to BT. They have enough of my money already, for a poor service.”
A BT spokesperson said: “The quote provided to Mr Mortimer was under the Universal Service Obligation, a government policy which gives customers who do not have access to ‘decent’ broadband speeds of 10Mbps or above the right to request a quote for an improved service.
“The Government is currently reviewing how best to improve connectivity for the small number of properties where these costs of deployment are very high.”
