Lee from Bridgend

With conventional broadband speeds not fast enough to support his family’s internet use, Lee Ralph from Bridgend switched to superfast as soon as it became available. Now he can upload hundreds of large image files while his 15-year-old son plays online games and watches YouTube channels such as Yogscast without interfering with the household’s internet connection.

Lee, who set up photography company Image IQ nine years ago, specialises in commercial, corporate and product photography. Running his studio and editing suite from a converted garage at his home, Lee realised he needed a superfast connection to be able to share files with his clients quickly.

He said: “Having my home and work in one place is great, I don’t have to commute or worry about renting office space. But it does mean when my son’s watching YouTube videos or my wife is browsing online, my ability to work online used to be affected. Now we can download films, stream TV and not worry about waiting for websites to load or iPlayer buffering because we can all be connected at the same time without interrupting each other.

“It’s also meant I can catch up with my parents who live three hours away and organise family get-togethers on Skype through a much clearer picture. I used to have to put up with seeing blurry pixels of their faces and the connection cutting out, but now it feels like they’re in the same room. It’s amazing how you can keep in touch with people today; it’s such a far cry from the days of dial-up where you had to yell at someone to get off the phone because you wanted to send an email!

“Running my business from home means being able to upload work onto cloud websites is a huge priority. I remember one time I was trying to upload more than 800 images of a jewellery collection I had photographed. It took so long I had to run the upload overnight, only to find the next day that my connection had dropped in the early hours of the morning. It was so frustrating and stressful I just knew I needed something more reliable.

“Now, instead of lying awake in bed worrying the connection has dropped and having to creep down to the studio in my pyjamas to check it’s still working, I can finish uploading well before bedtime and just relax with my family.”