Highlights
The UK lost £17.6 billion due to fixed business connectivity outages last year, underscoring the need for robust, reliable Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and Service Level Agreements (SLAs). A well-defined SLA lets you gauge how reliable a provider's infrastructure is. The more generous the SLA, the more confidence a provider has in their network capability and reliability. It also guarantees that you will be compensated if downtime occurs.
According to our Reliability and Compensation Report, authored by Assembly Research, the UK economy lost £17.6 billion in economic output in the past year due to fixed business connectivity outages.
Billions of pounds were wasted. It's a sobering figure.
How do you, as a business, guard yourself against this?
By getting to know your internet provider's service level agreement (SLA), and what it really means.
A transparent SLA lets you gauge how robust a provider's infrastructure is. The more generous the SLA, the more confidence a provider has in their network capability and reliability. It also guarantees that you will be compensated if downtime occurs.
So, what should you expect to see in the small print? Let's explore the world of SLAs.
What is an SLA?
An SLA is a contract that outlines and defines the type of service you can expect from your business internet provider.
It should lay out how they measure your service and what compensation they will give you if they do not deliver the promised service level.
We all know reliable connectivity is paramount to your business’ internal and external functions, so SLAs are very important. They allow you to mitigate some of the impact of connectivity outages, but more importantly they serve as an indicator of the quality of the infrastructure you rely on. By scrutinising the terms, you can make informed decisions, ensuring that you choose a service that aligns with your demands.
Many businesses are in the dark
There’s low awareness surrounding business internet providers’ SLAs—and that’s an issue.
Our research finds that almost a quarter (23%) of UK fixed business connectivity customers were unsure whether their contracts even included SLAs or SLGs.
Among those familiar with their SLA, 21% didn't know if their contract specified compensation arrangements if certain service quality levels weren’t met.
If you're in the dark about your SLA, your business could be vulnerable. Commitment to high levels of compensation from providers acts as motivation to technical teams to pre-empt issues, therefore fostering a culture of continuous improvement.
The good news is you can request an SLA from your business internet service provider (ISP) if they haven't issued you one (or you haven't seen one).
The economic toll of outages
Consistent connectivity is not a luxury.
Ofcom finds that 83% of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) consider communications services fundamental to their business, so much so they could not function without them.
60% of companies in London reported one or more service losses over the past year, with 28% experiencing at least three outages.
Our analysis reveals that over the last year, the average loss of economic output to London businesses as a result of internet outages was £18,620. This equates to an average 314 lost hours of productivity (nearly 40 working days) per London business.
Staggering numbers to swallow.
This highlights the importance of transparency in contractual terms, as well as auto compensation. Businesses should not be left with minimal or no compensation if the worst occurs.
As things stand, the case is clear: businesses across the UK are losing out to connectivity outages.
Don’t leave money on the table
Despite the average UK business losing over £11,000 in economic output due to connectivity outages in the past year, 61% of UK businesses surveyed reported that they did not receive compensation from their ISP.
For those that didn’t ask for compensation, the main reasons given were that they believed it was not worth the time and effort or they didn’t expect to get compensation.
Only around a third of businesses surveyed reported receiving any compensation for connectivity outages in the past year.
If only they knew it could be a seamless and automatic process.
As a result of our findings, we’ve urged Ofcom to introduce an automatic compensation scheme for fixed business connectivity providers; we want this to become the standard.
Why we love SLAs
Business internet providers can hold themselves to account by including automatic compensation clauses in their SLAs. This indicates confidence in their infrastructure and a commitment to their customers.
This is how we use SLAs at Vorboss:
- To highlight our confidence in our network
- To ensure we compensate our customers fairly and automatically if outages occur
- To establish clear expectations between our customers and us (guaranteed uptime, response times, and compensation)
We’re raising the bar by providing the most competitive SLAs in the industry, automatically compensating businesses after just 4 minutes of downtime.
SLAs should be transparent and include automatic compensation to give customers greater trust in their providers—and encourage providers to improve service quality.
The bottom line
Read your SLA, whether it’s your existing one or you’re signing up for a new contract.
If there’s anything unclear, discuss it. If you don’t have one, ask for one.
If necessary, demand a more robust SLA to safeguard against connectivity issues.
If your SLA doesn’t include auto compensation, claim compensation for outages if they occur.
Every SLA should have a silver lining.
Tell us about yourself so we can serve you best.
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At May's biquarterly Women in Telecoms meetup, hosted at Vorboss HQ, women from across the industry came together to share experiences, reflect on progress, and explore what real inclusion looks like.
The session, led by Natalie Strange, MD of RPS Telecoms and Head of the Women in Telecoms group, included a panel discussion with our colleagues at Vorboss about their experiences in the industry, the steps we’re taking to make telecoms more inclusive, and what's next.
Here’s how the discussion went
Meet the panel
Jade, Team Lead Engineer
Joined Vorboss at 18 as an apprentice. Now leads on-site fibre installation teams across London.
Tamryn, People & Culture Manager
Originally joined as a Training Administrator. Now helps embed inclusive policies and support systems across the organisation.
Taylor, Head of Operations
Leads the teams that connect customers and deliver our service end-to-end.
Q: What has your journey been like as a woman in telecoms?
Jade shared her positive experience:
“It’s been amazing. I knew I didn’t want to go down the university route; I wanted to get stuck in and work. Vorboss trained me from the beginning, and now I lead my own team. I genuinely love what I do.”
Tamryn, who recently came back from maternity leave, shared:
“Coming back was a big worry for me – would I still fit in? Would I be supported? The answer’s been yes. We have a parent room, a fridge for milk, and my son’s even visited the office. My son’s even visited the office!”
Q: What hiring barriers still exist in telecoms, and how are we addressing them?
Tamryn:
“For engineering roles especially, we had to rethink the language we used. The old versions were unintentionally harsh and often male-coded. Once we made them clearer and more neutral, more women applied”
Some practical changes discussed included:
- Remove industry jargon from job descriptions
- Manually review CVs instead of relying on (often biased) AI-driven filtering
- Eliminate unnecessary degree requirements
- Run diverse interview panels
Q: How can companies like Vorboss foster more inclusive environments that attract, support, and retain women – from technical roles to leadership positions?
Tamryn:
“We’ve made training fully in-house through the Vorboss Academy, so no previous experience is required. That’s opened doors to people who wouldn’t normally apply. We’ve also built internal career tracks, flexible policies, and training for inclusive management.”
Vorboss has launched these initiatives to retain talent and progress women into leadership roles:
- Internal secondments: opportunities to explore other career options internally.
- Training: manager training on inclusive team management plus annual DE&I and menopause awareness training for all staff.
- Flexibility: accommodating workforce needs, e.g. part-time contracts.
- Internal promotion: fostering internal growth means more women in senior roles, helping us retain talent.
- Listening and acting on feedback: from uniform design to policy, we want to ensure everyone feels seen.
Other policies include paid period days, free sanitary products, IVF and adoption leave, domestic abuse support, free breakfast and welfare vans.
Jade completed a secondment with our data centre team. Though she stayed in her role, she found the experience valuable:
“It was such a good learning experience. It gave me more context and helped me feel more confident in my role.”
Q: What barriers have you encountered (or seen others face), and what helped you or your teams overcome them?
Tamryn:
“Workwear. It seems small, but early on we realised all the uniforms were made for men; gloves, trousers, fireproof kit. We redesigned it all. It took time, but it meant that everyone could work more effectively.”
Q: What advice would you give to the next generation of women pursuing careers in telecoms?
Taylor had clear advice:
“Don’t assume the person you’re talking to knows more than you. Say yes to opportunities. If you fail, that’s fine. Ask for help and keep moving.”
Jade:
“Do it! It’s been life changing for me. I’m so grateful I took the chance.”
Q: What’s next for Vorboss?
We want to keep growing - not just in size, but in diversity, inclusion, and opportunity, and inspire others to follow suit.
We’ve set measurable goals for diversity and inclusion, including:
- Today: more than 1 in 3 of our technical and engineering roles are held by women.
- By 2027: we aim for 50/50 gender parity in technical and engineering roles.
- By 2028: we aim for gender parity company-wide.
We’ve signed Ofcom’s Women in Tech pledge and publish our gender pay gap annually.
About Women in Telecoms
Women in Telecoms is an initiative by Comms Council UK, created in response to growing demand from its members for regular opportunities to network, share experiences, discuss key industry topics, and exchange ideas.
Vorboss formalises strategic partnership with Roc Technologies to deliver innovative connectivity services to London's local councils.
London, [02.06.2025] – Vorboss, London's leading dedicated connectivity provider, today announces a strategic partnership with Roc Technologies to deliver best-in-class network solutions tailored specifically for local councils across the capital.
This partnership, borne of long standing collaboration between the companies, brings together two organisations committed to leveraging technology to enhance public sector services. The Vorboss high-performance, resilient network, combined with Roc Technologies' highly secure, customer-centred approach, provides local councils with a distinctive and robust solution to address real citizen needs.
Jason O’Malley, Chief of Commercial Operations at Vorboss, said: "We're excited to be partnering with Roc Technologies, whose values and customer-centric approach align closely with our own. This partnership enables us to offer unparalleled connectivity solutions, directly improving service delivery and efficiency for local councils."
Adam Jarvis , CRO at Roc Technologies, added: "Our partnership with Vorboss brings together two businesses that truly differentiate in the way they support their customers, providing highly responsive services designed to enhance their overall experience. Leveraging Vorboss' superior infrastructure and their technical experts located across London allows us to provide a combined service delivery capability that transforms how local councils manage their infrastructure, ultimately benefiting the communities they serve."
The combined expertise of Vorboss and Roc Technologies presents councils across London with an unmatched proposition: cutting-edge connectivity delivered with clarity, reliability, and a shared dedication to customer-driven outcomes.
ENDS
For further information, please contact:
Kirstie Lane
Kirstie.lane@vorboss.com
About Vorboss:
Vorboss is London’s dedicated enterprise fibre network. We are disrupting the status quo by providing London businesses with access to critical fibre infrastructure with simple, transparent pricing and London-wide coverage.
Since 2019, we've invested over £250 million into our London network. We have deployed over 700km of fibre optic cables to date, setting an unparalleled standard in both scale and quality.
We maintain complete ownership of the network that we built. This gives us the freedom to approach telecommunications differently.
Partners and customers deal directly with the engineers who built the network, and we can deliver installations and bandwidth upgrades within days, not months.
About Roc Technologies:
Who are Roc?
Roc Technologies delivers transformational IT solutions to public and private sector organisations across the UK. We are a team of brilliant minds, bringing together highly secure infrastructure, advanced cyber security, intelligent automation and modern cloud services, all supported by our 24/7 Managed Services Operations Centre. Our expertise is backed up by some of the UK’s most rigorous data and security accreditations; we’ve earned the trust of the nation’s largest and most complex organisations and have safeguarded their most sensitive data for over a decade.
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