What if you work from home and have no Wifi?

[Honeysucklelane]

We both work from home, DH’s work has an office he goes to once or twice a week. My work has no office and we’re all remote.

Our Wifi has gone down, DH is provided with a work mobile so he’s been able to hotspot to it to do work today. We can’t both use his hotspot.

I haven’t got a work mobile or any way of connecting to Wifi for work tomorrow - unless I go out and spend money sitting in a cafe or somewhere with Wifi.

Just curious to know what other home based workers do in this situation? Do your employers expect you to find alternative Wifi? Do they accept you can’t work through no fault of your own? Does your employer provide or pay for Wifi for you?

I use my personal phone as a hotspot. But it doesn't cost me anything to do this. If it did though I'd not be doing it.

What is causing the Wi-Fi issues? Outages don’t normally last long so my company would understand if I didn’t have access for a couple of hours. In practice I would tether on my own phone as I have a decent data package.

I have bought a pre paid dongle to use in emergencies. A couple of times the WiFi went out for over a day so needed a solution. One day isn't great but understandable if it's sudden; several days or if you know it's going to happen you need to find a solution.

I think if it's for more than just a day you'd probably be expected to go somewhere with wi-fi. Maybe a friend's house, the library, a cafe or something.

Can you go and work in a library,? It's free WiFi in the libraries in this area.

Our policy is that it is your problem to sort and if you can't work you need to take holiday or unpaid leave. If your work allows you to work from cafes you could that, or a library. Can you not hot-spot off your own phone?

I’d get £5 worth of data on an eSIM and hotspot, or find somewhere with free wifi I could work for the day. Depends what type of tasks you’re doing - emails and the odd zoom meeting, or something that needs a lot of internet? Uploading big files or videos, etc…

Work phone hot spot. Sometimes that goes too, the joys of rural living I’d go find a place to work. Cafe, community workspace, library. If it’s more than a couple of hours it’s your responsibility to find a plan B.

We would be expected to go to the office or if we needed to get online immediately, tether to work phone. If you are fully remote, would there not be a written contingency plan outlining expectations and responsibilities?

@Honeysucklelane make other arrangements to work somewhere with WiFi - don’t see why work should make arrangements for you if you’re working at home.
lots of ways to get Wifi- cafe, work at a friends house who works from home, library, get a dongle, use DH hotspot or arrange your own with your provider

My work has strict rules about connecting in public spaces so you have to use a vpn, something to double check before you decamp to a cafe.

At my place, if you can’t work, you’d be expected to take a day off either unpaid or as annual leave.

DP and I both WFH full time. We have hotspots via our mobiles available if needed and can borrow a Starlink internet from a family member in the worse case scenario (we are quite rural without strong mobile signal).

I would usually go to a cafe or a friends house to work if the internet was down. We recently swapped to Starlink due to reliability issues with our old provider and touch wood we’ve had no down days since we changed. It was happening monthly before that.

My employer does not expect us to work in these situations. It’s one of the things they had to take on board when they made staff be homeworkers. We use a pc, not a laptop, and can’t work in a public environment.

It happened to me a couple of times and I used the local library or a cafe.

I would phone my employer and ask them what they wanted me to do.

This. If they haven't got a policy on this (check!) then they a) need to tell you and b) need a heads up that they need one!

What would happen if the WiFi went down at your work?

At ours, we’re expected to work at another site if it’s going to be down for a while, or we do other admin work. Ialdohave the option of using my work mobile for WiFi or to catch up on emails. I’d check with your work - these things happen, so if they’re not going to provide alternative IT to deal with emergency situations which can happen both on and off site, what is the guideance for staff when something that’s outwith their control happens?

My work say to take a day with your feet up. If it carries on for longer than a day, you'd have to make arrangements to go into an office even if it me at lots of travel. I also cannot log in at cafes etc for safety.

I think I've lost about two half days in 4yrs of WFH, and one of those was due to the neighbour digging up my cable!

I'd use my personal phone as a hotspot or go to the local library, failing that a service station has good WiFi

Some people have 2 different connections. Bit pricey, I think it's better to use your phone as a hotspot or get a dongle.

Isn't this a possibility you and/or your employer plans for when you start working at home?

We don't know if the employer has a policy as it seems that the OP hasn't asked them, that is the obvious thing to do not go by what other employers policies are

If the employees WFH regularly, the company should have a business continuity plan for what is done in situations like this. E.g - you would be expected to go into the office or to a library/cafe. Or just work offline if there are things that can be done that way. It really depends on how much can be done offline and how long it's expected to be down I suppose.