UK workers worst-served by office wifi - report

A research study conducted by Taiwanese networking equipment vendor ZyXEL has claimed UK workers are among the least well-served when it comes to office wifi availability at European businesses. According to the report, ensuring employees can connect their own devices to office wifi is key to increasing productivity and job satisfaction.

The research, compiled from 2,500 European desk-based workers’ responses, revealed 65% of British professionals have no wireless internet access at work, and 78% said they had experienced bad connectivity. Almost a quarter of those surveyed (24%) in the UK said they had missed a deadline due to bad internet connection.

“As we approach 2015 it’s astounding that so many office workers are without wifi in their office,” Lee Marsden, ZyXEL’s EU President said. “With no proper solutions, workers are bearing the brunt of such poor connectivity by failing to meet deadlines and missing targets.

The report claimed UK is lagging behind many other countries including the Czech Republic, Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands. However, the report stated there is room for improvement across the continent.

“The growth in high-speed connectivity across Europe, increasing adoption of cloud services and the shift towards mobile working, is highlighting a very clear opportunity for business to sit up and realise how they can both increase productivity and improve customer service,” Marsden said.

The use of wifi makes sense in a many ways as the signal is often stronger indoors than mobile data network, and it also uses less battery. Wifi also provides added flexibility. However, some companies prevent workers from accessing the business wifi through their own devices because of security concerns.