In Belgium, landlines are a vital part of the communications infrastructure, serving millions of homes across the country. BIPT regularly publishes official figures. These indicate that there are approximately 4.1 million fixed broadband lines for personal use:
Complaint statistics
Each year, a significant number of complaints are recorded concerning service outages on landlines in Belgium. User complaints highlight challenges faced, from sudden outages to persistent technical issues. Outage complaints are a good indicator of Internet Reliability in Belgium. Consumers will not complain unless the outage is long enough to cause them problems.
The issue of outages is important in the Belgian telecommunications market. Indeed, as shown in the annual report of the Mediation Service, consumer outages constituted 12.25% of complaints in 2022 compared to 10.03% in 2017. The trend is therefore increasing.
Internet Reliability in Belgium – Statistics
Service interruptions are unfortunately common, whether due to technical problems, maintenance work or extreme weather conditions. These disruptions can have a major impact on business productivity and the daily lives of individuals when working from home.
The breakdowns and disturbances to be taken into consideration are those which are the responsibility of the operator, excluding problems attributable to the customer’s on site equipment and installation. This indicator only covers breakdowns and outages reported by customers themselves, affecting fixed access lines.
In the second half of 2022, the rate of breakdowns and outages oscillated, depending on the operator, between 2.5 and 5%. Considering a total of 4.1 million fixed residential broadband lines for personal use, this represents approximately 150,000 households which, every six months, face outages.
Time taken for repair following a failure.
With the problems of Internet Reliability in Belgium, many people are faced with dealing with contacting technical support to remedy outages. The management of these outages is often chaotic. Obtaining an appointment for a technical intervention may not be straightforward . In addition, three or even four visits by technicians are sometimes necessary before the problem is completely resolved and the situation is normalized.
The time to repair a breakdown or malfunction is measured between the moment the problem was reported by the customer and the moment the service is completely restored.
Repair times can last for dozens of hours! In the second half of 2022, it took between 15 and 90 hours to resolve a fault in 80% of cases and between 100 and 220 hours to resolve a fault in 95% of cases.
The breakdowns and outages taken into consideration are those which are the responsibility of the operator, excluding problems attributable to the customer’s equipment and installation.
The need to ensure Internet access for teleworkers
In this context where working from home has become commonplace, ensuring reliable connectivity is imperative. We have shown here that Internet Reliability in Belgium is not adequate with 150,000 households affected by outages per semester. Many of these households have people working from home. This is where Ottie comes in, an innovative connectivity insurance, providing an essential backup solution. By subscribing to Ottie, users are protected against unplanned service outages, whether due to technical outages or weather incidents. Landlines in Belgium are an essential piece of infrastructure, but unfortunately are subject to outages. Ottie ensures stable and reliable connectivity, ensuring digital peace of mind and continued productivity in all circumstances.
No matter what you do, Ottie keeps you connected.
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Number of Landlines in Belgium In Belgium, landlines are a vital part of the communications infrastructure, serving millions of homes across the country. BIPT regularly publishes official figures. These indicate that there are approximately 4.1 million fixed broadband lines for personal use: Complaint statistics Each year, a significant number of complaints are recorded concerning service […]
