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A new Uswitch commissioned Opinium survey of 2,000 UK adults, which was conducted between 29th September to 2nd October 2026, has claimed that 26.7 million people suffered a “broadband outage” over the past year, with power cuts said to be overtaking ISP faults as the number one cause. But 4.6m (32%) are apparently unaware that power cuts can also stop digital phones working.
The above figures seem to be a rather bold extrapolation from a fairly small survey sample – for context, 48% of respondents had experience at least one outage in the past 12 months (up 19% on the prior year). The survey goes on to claim that 66% experienced outages lasting for 3 hours or more and 20% experienced them once a week or more often.
Among those hit by an outage, 42% say they lost their connection to a power cut, while 31% blamed provider faults and 31% said it stemmed from a router problem. Homes in rural areas, which often lack access to modern full fibre broadband networks, were also found to be the hardest hit with 63% of those affected suffering an outage due to a power cut, compared with 28% in urban areas.