As cloud and artificial intelligence (AI) adoption increases the operational importance of resilient connectivity, a worrying amount of UK business connectivity buyers – 45% of them – have experienced a fault where responsibility between suppliers was disputed or unclear, exposing a disconnect between growing reliance on always-on connectivity and clarity over who takes responsibility when it fails, says research from LightSpeed Networks.
For the study, the infrastructure-backed platform for business connectivity surveyed 401 full-time UK business connectivity decision-makers between 21 July and 22 August 2026. The sample had leadership or supervisory responsibilities across IT, operations, finance, procurement and project management.
Among the topline findings was that clear accountability during an outage was a challenge for many businesses. More than a third (34%) of buyers said 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. And, added LightSpeed Networks, 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, said the survey, is changing buying decisions. Poor outage response was the most-cited reason businesses would switch connectivity providers, indicated 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.
Such trends were also putting greater focus on who owns and operates the infrastructure beneath a service. Nearly two-thirds (61%) of buyers said they prefer providers with an end-to-end, owned and operated network, while 66% said knowing who owns the underlying infrastructure is more important to them than it was a year ago.
However, LightSpeed Networks stressed that the wider issue was 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.
Ultimately, the study highlighted how as connectivity becomes more deeply embedded in day-to-day operations, the ability to respond when it fails will carry greater weight. For businesses, it noted that 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.
“The value of good connectivity is ultimately the confidence it gives a business to operate and grow,” said Liam Hickey, group CEO at LightSpeed Networks. “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,” he added. “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.”
