Would no internet access put you off buying a house?

We’re going to be putting our up for sale & i was just wondering whether the lack of internet would put potential buyers off?
We’ve had BT/Openreach out a couple of times & their opinion is that it’s interference from nearby masts choking the signal strength down & there is pretty much nothing that can be done about it.

It would put me off. If I found out about it. Is that something that comes up in surveys these days?

Is it just slow or a complete no-go?

Hell yes. Part of my current deal at work is the ability to work from home a couple of days a week so that I don’t have to fight traffic and can spend time with my dogs. No internet means no WFH. That’s a deal breaker.

Do you mean no broadband or no Wi-Fi?

Yes. We considered moving after BTO said we would never get fibre. Kids were the main reason, they chomp through the data.

We eventually got fibre some 4yrs later. Keep pestering BTO.

Yes. More so than no mains water or electricity.

Yes mate – although some folk will be less bothered, may even be a selling point 🙂
Is it a very rural location? That would moderate expectations of buyers, no cable, etc. If it’s not obviously isolated then it does seem problematic – are your neighbours in the same boat?

Yep, I’d pass. Internet is an essential service these days.

Yes. I wouldn’t even consider a property with no internet.

For a weeks holiday in a remote cottage it’s a novelty to have no internet, but all the time – nope – we rely on it too much nowadays.

We moved from a house with 20mb fibre to 1.5mb copper. It’s not great, but it works. The kids have got used to it and we’ve got 4g now as well. It’s only going to get better over time, so I wouldn’t worry about it too much.

I could not live without internet access as I rely on it for job hunting and teleworking, banking, holiday research and bookings, research on cars and wasting time on here!

I would not buy a house without internet access – there would need to be some way of accessing the internet or no deal.

Yes, anythng under 10Mb/s and I wouldn’t bother viewing. Working from home makes decent broadband speed a necessity.

Internet is like any other utility now.

Having no mains water/sewerage/gas/electic isn’t going to stop people buying but it’s going to limit your market. Internet is the same, possibly more so than some as there’s no alternative like there is with bottled gas/heating oil/septic tanks.

Yes it will put people off so you’ll have to give them very significant grounds for choosing it over something else.

Yeh.. I rent and moved recently.. Had to turn a perfect place down as the broadband was shared with a house mate and about 2mb, due to distance from the exchange.. no plans to upgrade the street box to fibre either.
4g was strong but the usage caps for 4g Internet deals are not good enough for my usage.

I think the no work or no broad band is an important question that needs to be. Clarified.

Yes. I wouldn’t even consider a property with no internet.

For a weeks holiday in a remote cottage it’s a novelty to have no internet, but all the time – nope – we rely on it too much nowadays.
+1. It really is a utility now, for me at least.

Instant non starter for me. Wouldn’t buy a house at all without BB.

Yep would put me off, although the ‘nearby masts’ would probably put me off even more.

I’ll give you £100 for a quick sale – cash 🙂

Yes it would put me off. I couldn’t work without it so it’s a non starter. In my current house BT could not commit to giving us Infinity before we moved, so I priced a dedicated leased line such was the importance. The cost was huge but had to be factored in when comparing houses

Surely there’s no such thing as “no internet” these days? Satellite broadband is widely available and not horrifically expensive – it’s not ideal for streaming video or for VOIP but for most purposes it’s workable and faster that most ADSL.

If the property price reflected the increased cost of putting in essential services then I’d certainly not rule it out.

So BT are saying that the line’s fine but they’ve fed a couple of mobile masts into the exchange and that’s using all the bandwidth on their back-haul network?

How’s 4G? (oh the irony) my sister’s just moved from fixed to mobile broadband and they’ve gone from 0.5mb to 6mb – still not great but a world of difference.

Please excuse my ignorance/stupidity but doesn’t the internet come through a cable?

How does interference from a local mast affect internet that is coming through a cable. Or is it the Wi-Fi in the house that doesn’t work as it’s getting swamped by the signal from the mast?

God, I sound thick….

wouldn’t buy house with no internet

OP I would say your going to get a very one sided view from the STW demographic. If this is the demographic of your buyers then I would say you are going to struggle if they find out.

I nearly didn’t buy my current property as it only had 2mbps. But it was such a good deal I had to. Luckily we now have fibre.

I would say BT are very bad at helping with these issues. Are there any local broadband groups set up in your area? They might be able to help with your problem? My village had a broadband protest group.

I’d probably consider it, depends how much “no internet” it is, as long as there was a dribble so that at least skype could get through I’d be happy.

My parents have no broadband and get by just fine with a dongle and 3G, the only thing it can’t do is HD streaming.

Its a definite no from me.
It is a utility now – just like gas/electricity/water.

I work from home occasionally and good internet is a must, same for the wife.
The kids also use the internet for their homework.

You’re going to have to explain exactly what you mean by interference from local masts interfering with signal strength – that should make no difference at all to the signal you get down your copper wire.

You’re going to have to explain exactly what you mean by interference from local masts interfering with signal strength – that should make no difference at all to the signal you get down your copper wire.

If the cable to your house is overhead and the mast is nearby, it will induce a current on your cable at the RF frequency….

You’re going to have to explain exactly what you mean by interference from local masts interfering with signal strength – that should make no difference at all to the signal you get down your copper wire.

This. Sounds like nonsense to me. Unless as above the backhaul is saturated.

However – yes of course. I tested 3/4G strength and investigated broadband every house I looked at.

It will, but those cables don’t make particularly good antennas for those frequencies, and neither should those frequencies interfere significantly with the data modulation on the copper. I’m not an RF engineer, but I’ve worked with people who are and done modelling of stuff like that, and also many years ago worked with a committee investigating RF interference due to ADSL and power line communications (the latter would have been shit, as power lines would have made good antennas for the proposed modulation frequencies – copper phone lines were far less of an issue as they made far less efficient antennas).

No. i couldn’t work/earn money. i’m just ftp’ing 120 images for a client now, will take about 40mins on 50mb virgin fibre. not possible on rural 2-4mb as it would take so long that you get dropped connections and even on 8mb services sending stuff up the pipe slows the downstream and you cant use the internet or send/receive emails.

Our cottage only has a mobile phone reception with O2 and even that was a nightmare when we moved in.
Having no internet would be a deal breaker for me (even before I ran my own business from home).

It will, but those cables don’t make particularly good antennas for those frequencies

Doesn’t really matter if the mast is nearby, you’ll still get a decent current induced, although whether or not that is a problem is another matter.

NB I am an RF engineer and have designed, built and trialled some of the very first power line and ADSL systems (20+ years ago). Although I’ve long since forgotten all the details and technology has since moved on!

IIRC the biggest problem was street lights, they pollute the LV cables considerably when they switch on.

If the cable to your house is overhead and the mast is nearby, it will induce a current on your cable at the RF frequency….

It will induce a current on the ground shield, if it gets to the signal conductor then someone has a problem with their cable. That’s why you shield cables…

You will also usually find that the frequencies are quite different. A copper phone cable (which can carry ADSL up to ~1 MHz) isn’t going to do too well with the GHz frequencies of GSM, HSDPA, UMTS, etc so even if you did get some pickup it is going to attenuate pretty quickly.

Yeah non-starter for me I’m afraid – we’re house hunting at the moment and I check every address before viewing – I’ve got 4Meg at the moment and it makes working from home very dificult, I can’t do all the tasks I can in the office.

Open Reach are duty bound to offer all addresses fibre by the end of March 2016 – frankly they’re never going to do it, but there is at least hope!

bruneep – Member
Yes. We considered moving after BTO said we would never get fibre. Kids were the main reason, they chomp through the data.
We eventually got fibre some 4yrs later. Keep pestering BTO.

How did you go about pestering Openreach?

Before we bought our house a quick search said fibre was available at our cabinet. How ever we are too far from the cabinet to have it supplied to our house.

Well looks like I’m probably one of the minority in that it wouldn’t put me off outright, but you’re not clear in your OP what you actually mean, ie: is it just very poor DSL speed, or NO DSL service possible?

Our address is currently FTTC capable from BT and also in a VM cable area, I’m not bothered about upgrading*, standard (not even great ~6meg) DSL more than enough.

I could get by without decent Internet access at home, but it would be tricky with none at all, but then I’d look at mobile or satellite…

* STUPID DISCLAIMER – I work for an ISP and my connection is free either way 😯

we get between 0.5 and 2.3 mb depending on the direction of the wind it would seem…..

doesnt bother me.

Absolutely no internet on the other hand would be a pain so id be wanting that clarified.

my favorite house still to this day was in the foot of a glen where we got no mobile signal at all and the land lord was open about it. didnt bother us.