Customers have terminated their broadband packages en masse in the past 12 months or order to cope with the cost-of-living crisis hitting UK households, a survey conducted by Citizens Advice shows.
The charity’s poll of 6,000 respondents showed that Universal Credit recipients were six times more likely to have discontinued their broadband subscriptions.
Citizens Advice worries the situation may worsen as those claiming benefits are four times more likely to fall behind on broadband bills.
Compounding the issue is evidence that struggling customers are failing to avail themselves of social tariffs or special low-cost packages designed to help people stay online.
Ofcom recently cautioned that 4.3 million eligible people were missing out on such deals. According to the regulator, one in three households in the UK struggle to afford communication services, prompting the organisation to call on companies to do more in promoting these tariffs.
The government stated that it had collaborated with Ofcom and the industry to introduce a range of products to the market, available in 99% of the country, with prices starting from £10 per month, yet only 5% of eligible people have taken up the offers.
Dame Clare Moriarty, chief executive of Citizens Advice, called on Ofcom to "hold firms' feet to the fire" to promote the offers.
"People are being priced out of internet access at a worrying rate. Social tariffs should be the industry's safety net, but firms' current approach to providing and promoting them clearly isn't working,” said Moriarty. "The people losing out, as a result, are the most likely to disconnect."
With public services and recruitment predominantly done over the web, people without access to internet are inevitably at a disadvantage when reentering the jobs market.
The government said its job centre staff "regularly signpost claimants to relevant information on social tariffs, and claimants can access computers for their work search at their local Jobcentre."