Ofcom urged to extend automatic compensation scheme

London City Hall and UK Business Groups have written to Ofcom asking for automatic compensation for fixed business internet customers following outages.

The British Chamber of Commerce (BCC), Federation of Small Businesses (FSB), and the Institute of Directors (IoD) have all given their support to the campaign.

In an open letter to Ofcom, the business groups state: “We know from our members that having access to resilient and reliable connectivity helps all types of businesses to operate successfully. And that loss of connectivity has a significant impact on productivity.

“Supporting businesses to increase productivity and economic growth is critical, and solutions which drive improvements in UK connectivity infrastructure will play an important role in achieving this.”

This echoes Vorboss’ calls for Ofcom to introduce an automatic compensation scheme similar to that introduced for fixed line consumers in 2019.

Vorboss Chief Corporate Affairs Officer, James Fredrickson, said: “It’s clear from the responses of the biggest business internet providers that compensation is anything but automatic. Hiding behind compensating on a ‘case-by-case’ basis is exactly what Ofcom needs to put a stop to.

“Our research shows that 61% of businesses that experienced an outage in the last year did not receive any compensation, with 44% saying requesting compensation wasn’t worth the time and effort.

“For those that do pursue compensation, the typical payout is hardly worth the effort. Standard business internet tariffs today would offer only £7.53 per hour of outage in compensation – about the price of a pint of craft beer in a London pub – for outages costing a typical London business more than £18,000 in productivity a year.”

Theo Blackwell MBE (pictured), Chief Digital Officer for London, said: “The quality of internet services in London is critically important to growth. As a regulator, Ofcom has a key responsibility and has an opportunity here to increase business productivity by promoting quality-based competition amongst business internet providers.”