Case Study
Cumbria
March 2023

Family's 'torturous and painful' broadband nightmare after moving to Cumbria village

A family in Cumbria struggled to get a broadband connection stable and fast enough to enable them to work from home - despite being assured by developers that they'd have access to good quality broadband before they moved into their new property.

The Massey family were facing an ongoing nightmare to get access to fast and reliable broadband after moving into a home in a remote part of Cumbria. Their new house was part of a new build development in Winskill, but despite prior assurances they'd be able to access fibre lines just 50 metres away, no broadband companies were able to provide them with a fibre-based service. This left the Masseys having to deal with near unusable landline broadband speeds of just 6-7 Mbps.

With both Gary and his wife Katherine requiring high quality internet access to work from home and two children taking up valuable bandwidth with streaming services, online gaming and schoolwork, the only landline service available to the family simply couldn't meet their needs.

Gary said: "It was to be honest completely unworkable and made our lives a lot more stressful."

To add insult to injury, as their home was newly built, many broadband providers didn't even recognise their address, creating further hurdles for the Massey family. Gary described the experience as 'torturous and painful' and said that his neighbours, also part of the same new build development, were facing the exact same difficulties.

Fortunately, Gary was able to find an answer for his family with alternative broadband specialists National Broadband. Its 4G-based solution has transformed their broadband experience, delivering speeds of up to 50 Mbps and providing the Massey family with the speedy and stable broadband they were crying out for.

Gary added: “Moving into a new home is full of little obstacles and hurdles to overcome, but I could never have envisioned the torturous process that we went through when trying to get access to fast and reliable broadband. Despite a fibre line being located a mere 50 metres away from our property, we were repeatedly told it was not possible to be connected and instead were offered speeds that were simply not suitable for our needs. Thankfully, National Broadband has been able to provide us with a great service, getting my family back online in a timely and cost-effective way.”

According to Ofcom, there are over 3,000 properties in the Eden District like the Massey family without access to the national minimum standard broadband speeds of 10 Mbps via a fixed line, and over 90% of these properties are located in rural areas.

David Hennell, Director at National Broadband added: “It's hard to imagine anyone in a town or urban area going through the same agonising process that Gary and his family did in trying to gain access to fit-for-purpose broadband. They're a prime example of how the digital divide negatively impacts individuals' and households' daily lives.

"Access to fast and reliable broadband is absolutely essential in the modern society we live in today and at National Broadband we're proud to be able to provide a high-quality broadband connection to people who have been forgotten by the Government and neglected by other internet providers.”

See this story on the Lancs Live website.