BRITAIN’S BROADBAND BLACKOUT: POWER CUTS NOW THE TOP CAUSE OF OUTAGES AS 26.7 MILLION LOSE CONNECTION

More than 26 million people lost their broadband connection at least once in the past year, with power cuts the leading cause, according to new research by Uswitch.com, the comparison and switching service.[1]
Most outages are no brief blip. Two-thirds (66%) of those affected, 17.6 million people, were cut off for three hours or more, and 5.3 million say it happens at least once a week.[6] Almost half of UK adults (48%) have now been hit by an outage, up almost a fifth (19%) on 2025.[1]

Among those hit by an outage, two in five (42%) lost their connection to a power cut, followed by provider faults (31%) and router problems (25%).[2] Rural households are hit hardest: almost two-thirds (63%) of those affected lost broadband to a power cut, compared with just over a quarter (28%) in urban areas.[2]

The risk of broadband outages may grow this winter. The Met Office warns that an “unprecedented” El Niño could make autumn and early winter wetter and stormier than usual, with its head of long-range prediction, Professor Adam Scaife, saying he has “never seen an El Niño signal this intense in our forecasts”.[3]

Severe weather is a major cause of power cuts: Storm Arwen alone left just under a million homes without electricity in November 2021.[7] Almost four million adults (7%) lost their broadband to a storm, flood or severe weather in the past year, rising to one in eight (12%) in rural areas,[2] and two in five Brits (43%) are worried that storms, flooding or power cuts could knock out their connection in the months ahead.[3]
For many homes, losing power also means losing the phone. A quarter of UK adults (26%), around 14 million people, have a digital landline that runs through their broadband router, which means it stops working in a power cut unless a battery backup is fitted. Around a third of them (32%), about 4.6 million people, don’t know this.[4]

The switch to digital landlines is well under way, with most homes expected to have moved off the old copper network by January 2027.[8] Because they run through the broadband router, providers must make sure customers can still reach the emergency services for at least an hour in a power cut, and offer free battery backup to those at risk.

Few people are getting compensation. Just one in six (16%) of those hit by an outage received compensation, down from 22% last year, and more than half (57%) didn’t know they could ask, though not every outage qualifies.[5]

Under Ofcom’s automatic compensation scheme, customers of participating providers, which include BT, EE, Sky, TalkTalk, Virgin Media and Vodafone, are owed £10.34 a day if a total loss of service isn’t fixed within two full working days of being reported.[9] Shorter outages and drop-outs don’t qualify, so not everyone who lost connection is owed money.
Londoners were the most likely to have lost their connection, with three in five (60%) affected, up from just over half (53%) in 2025, followed by the South West (56%) and the West Midlands (51%).[10]

Table: Proportion of adults who lost their broadband connection in the past 12 months, by region.[10]
Region
% who lost connection
London
60%
South West
56%
West Midlands
51%
Northern Ireland
48%
South East
48%
North West
47%
East of England
47%
North East
47%
East Midlands
46%
Yorkshire and the Humber
45%
Scotland
41%
Wales
39%
UK
48%

Max Beckett, Uswitch broadband expert, says: “Your broadband is only as reliable as the electricity behind it, and power cuts are now the main reason people lose their connection. It’s worth spending a few minutes now working out what you’d do if it went off for an afternoon.

“It’s also worth knowing how your landline works. Most homes are moving onto digital landlines that run through the broadband router, which means the phone needs power. If the electricity goes off, so does the phone, and millions of people don’t realise that. Keep a charged mobile to hand, and if anyone in your home relies on the landline, ask your provider about a battery backup.
“If you’ve been left offline for days, check that your provider is in Ofcom’s compensation scheme and that the money has arrived. Not every provider is signed up, and that’s worth knowing before you renew.”