The nightmare before Christmas: Ofcom says fairy lights could interfere with your wifi
Next time your internet connection isn't working, blame your fairy lights, which Ofcom has warned can interfere with the wifi signal.
Ofcom released its telecoms and wireless network report today, which suggests wireless broadband may be slower than it should be in nearly six million UK homes, thanks to poor set-up and inference from household objects including lamps, microwaves, baby monitors and fairy lights.
Overall, Ofcom says broadband coverage in the UK is improving: 27 per cent of homes now have superfast broadband, up from 21 per cent last year, and superfast internet is available to access in 83 per cent of UK houses, up from 75 per cent.
Read more: London businesses are held back by slow internet
It's good news for SMEs as well, superfast services are now available to 68 per cent of small and medium sized businesses, almost 900,000, up from 56 per cent in 2014.
In the countryside however, only 37 per cent of houses have access to superfast broadband, and some 130,000 small companies operating from business parks cannot get internet faster than 10 megabits a second.
Eight per cent of UK households, 2.4 million, don't even have access to broadband speed of 10 megabits a second, which the government pledged to roll out to all businesses, while promising everyone in the UK access to superfast internet by 2020. This jumps to 48 per cent without access to 10 Mbit/s if you live out in the country.
Ofcom estimates that by 2017, when 95 per cent of all UK premises will have superfast broadband, around 18 per cent of SMEs will still not have access to a superfast service.