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Third of people have WiFi 'notspots' in their homes

Internet providers said thick walls and the position of the router could affect WiFi coverage - PA
Internet providers said thick walls and the position of the router could affect WiFi coverage - PA

A third of homes have WiFi ‘notspot’ rooms with no signal, a survey has found as internet providers have blamed thick walls in homes for harming coverage.

A survey by the broadband provider Zen Internet found that 33 percent of UK households experience signal blackspots, with nearly one in five people saying they had moved their router in an attempt to improve coverage.

It comes as the Internet Services Providers' Association (ISPA) called on construction firms to do more to improve WiFi coverage, saying many new homes were still being “built for the last century”.

ISPA, which represents major providers such as BT and Virgin, said WiFi signal coverage is largely dictated by the quality of the router and where it is placed in a home, which is decided in turn by where the connection to the network comes into the building.

Signal can also be affected by the architecture of a home with thicker walls making it harder for coverage to spread through the whole building.

Till Sommer, Head of Policy at ISPA, said: “Construction firms are still building homes for the last century. Smart homes (homes where appliances such as fridges are connected to the internet) will only work if you have the connectivity you need.

“You can look at the kind of material that you use in the building as different types have different impacts on WiFi signal. Concrete is really bad for WiFi signals, wood is really good - with masonry in the middle.”

According to Ofcom figures published in May, average broadband speeds received by UK households had risen by almost 20 percent in the last 12 months.

However, faster broadband connections do not fix the problem of poor WiFi coverage, according to ISPA. Mr Sommer said that the design of a home and where the broadband connection came in also had a critical impact on getting signal in all rooms.

He added: “We recognise that routers are not pretty and you may not want to give it pride of place on the mantlepiece next to the photos of the kids. But in a new home it should be placed centrally so you don’t have the issue of the signal going through a number of rooms.

“There are still developers that put a telephone socket into every single bedroom and the living room. What you can do instead is start wiring the whole place with proper network cabling, so you could have routers in different rooms.”

The survey by Zen, which was conducted with 2,000 members of the public, found many did not know who to blame for poor WiFi coverage in their homes.

Around a fifth (21 percent) said they believed being on multiple devices at once affected their signal, while 22 percent said their internet provider was to blame for the poor signal in parts of their home.

More than a quarter (26 percent) said they avoided certain rooms in their home when trying to get online because of signal notspots and 15 percent said they had become so frustrated with the situation they had invested in a signal booster.

Paul Stobart, chief executive of Zen Internet said: "With WiFi connectivity throughout the home now an expected requirement for modern-day living, it's unacceptable that families are still struggling to connect to their WiFi in whatever room they want.

"It's the responsibility of the broadband industry to ensure consumers have the best service possible and this includes providing the tools to deliver this."