Why surge in people home working could become a permanent part of UK life

Catherine Colloms, MD for Corporate Affairs & Brand with Openreach, told The Yorkshire Post that the increase in people getting a taste of what remote working looks like, combined with enhanced broadband connectivity, could result in more people moving people out of cities and allow small and medium sized businesses to operate from towns, villages and rural areas.

Openreach has predicted that improvements to full fibre broadband networks could bring 39,000 people back into the workforce owing to enhanced connectivity.

She said: “You do wonder to what extend do working practices change once people realise they can work more remotely.

“In terms of these knock on effects it could mean more people not having to live in cities, being able to move outside of London and potentially into more rural communities.”

Ms Colloms added that once full fibre was installed across the UK that hundreds of thousands of more people who would be able to work remotely, saying that it could in effect end the brain drain from places like seaside towns which have lost out economically over the last 20 years.

“Instead of having to commute to bigger cities you can set up businesses grounded in the communities they are based.

“That keeps jobs in communities it keeps other businesses going. It unlocks huge opportunities for the way we live and work.”

Ms Colloms also said that the rise in satellite working was taking up more bandwidth on the network but that it was still comfortably within its capacity and still nowhere near as high as the evening peak seen between 8pm and 11pm when usage of online gaming and streaming services ramps up.

“We are seeing a significant increase during the day,” she said.

“That said it is still perfectly manageable, it is what the network were designed to do.

“The network is actually built to deal with very high bandwidth during our peak time which are evenings and we are still not seeing during the day, despite those increases, anything like that kind of peak.

“Last Friday it was up 46 per cent in terms of traffic during the day. We are seeing significant increases in use during the day.

“Quite a lot of what people do during the day in terms of applications like Zoom and online conferencing actually use relatively less bandwidth than some of the very bandwidth intense stuff we see during the evening like streaming and online gaming.”

She added a large spike was being seen at 9am when Joe Wicks conducts his online workout for children on YouTube.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has set an ambitious target of having full fibre broadband in every home by 2025.

Ms Colloms said the target was “super ambitious” but that Openreach was supportive of the attempt owing to the transformational impact it could have on the UK economy.

She said: “Our research shows £59bn will be added to overall productivity in the UK if we build full fibre.”

Openreach is currently connecting 30,000 premises a week and aims to have doubled its full fibre coverage this year.

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