FRUSTRATED computer users in part of Havering-atte-Bower have spoken out about their painfully slow Internet connection.

Marguerite Crossfield, of North Road, works from home. She said that she has problems getting her work done because the area doesn’t receive proper coverage.

“To live so near to a big town, only five miles from Romford, and three miles from Collier Row, and to have such problems seems wrong.

“It’s almost like if one person’s on the Internet you’re going to lose connection. I have meetings on Skype, and I keep losing it. It doesn’t matter what service provider you have, 0.3 (mega bits per second) is the maximum speed you can get.”

Her neighbour Lorraine Ithell said: “It’s rubbish. Sometimes you don’t get it for about two or three days. It’s hit and miss whether you get it or not, and my kids need it for their homework.”

The problem appears to be worse in areas of the village nearer to Stapleford Abbots.

The government says that it plans to give every home in the UK access to superfast broadband by 2015.

A spokesman for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, said: “The way that we’re doing this is we’re working with local partners. We’re currently carrying out pilot trials to see what the lessons are about rolling broadband out to hard-to-reach areas.”