Nearly Half of UK Businesses Left Unclear Who Is Responsible When Connectivity Fails

London, UK, September 1, 2026 – A survey of over 400 UK business connectivity buyers reveals 45% have experienced a fault where responsibility between suppliers was disputed or unclear, according to new research from LightSpeed Networks – exposing a disconnect between growing reliance on always-on connectivity and clarity over who takes responsibility when it fails.

Clear accountability during an outage remains a challenge for many businesses. More than a third (34%) of buyers say ownership of fault resolution across their connectivity supply chain is not clearly defined, leaving businesses navigating multiple suppliers at the very moment they need a fast response.

The survey found that three-quarters (75%) of UK business connectivity buyers believe cloud and AI adoption has made resilient connectivity more important. As organisations become increasingly dependent on the network beneath critical applications, communications and workflows, resilience and accountability are becoming more important parts of the provider relationship.

That dependence is changing buying decisions. Poor outage response is now the most-cited reason businesses would switch connectivity providers, cited by 56% of buyers, ahead of price (51%) and poor customer support (48%). Clear accountability and confidence in fault handling are therefore becoming increasingly important parts of the provider relationship.

This is also putting greater focus on who owns and operates the infrastructure beneath a service. Nearly two-thirds (61%) of buyers prefer providers with an end-to-end, owned and operated network, while 66% say knowing who owns the underlying infrastructure is more important to them than it was a year ago. However, the wider issue is operational clarity; whether services run wholly across an owned network or involve multiple infrastructure partners, businesses need clear accountability, visibility across the supply chain and a provider that is able to coordinate resolution when something goes wrong.

Liam Hickey, Group Chief Executive Officer at LightSpeed Networks, said: “The value of good connectivity is ultimately the confidence it gives a business to operate and grow. As organisations put more critical workloads into the cloud and adopt AI across their operations, they need infrastructure they can depend on without having to navigate the complexity underneath it. That changes what businesses should expect from a connectivity partner. Resilience is as much about what happens when something goes wrong as preventing it in the first place.

“Businesses need a connectivity partner that takes ownership, acts quickly and coordinates the route to resolution. That has a direct impact on productivity, customer experience and ultimately the bottom line. Price will always matter, but the real value of connectivity is the confidence that the business can keep moving when it matters most.”

As connectivity becomes more deeply embedded in day-to-day operations, the ability to respond when it fails will carry greater weight. For businesses, resilience increasingly comes down to operational clarity: who has visibility across the service, who can coordinate action quickly and, ultimately, who is accountable for getting them back online.

Research Methodology

LightSpeed Networks commissioned an online survey of 401 full-time UK business connectivity decision-makers with leadership or supervisory responsibilities across IT, operations, finance, procurement and project management, with fieldwork conducted between 21 July and 22 August 2026.