Britain's slowest streets for broadband revealed
Tuesday, 20 September 2011 04:18
A street in Suffolk has the slowest broadband speeds in Britain, price comparison website uSwitch.com has revealed.
Mount Pleasant, in the town of Halesworth, has an average download speed of 0.128Mb, a report from the firm said.
This rate is 147 times slower than the fastest town in the country and 53 times worse than the national average.
Residents would need to spend 48 hours online to download a single movie, the study suggested.
Other poor performers on the list of the 50 worst streets for broadband included Forestfield, in the West Sussex town of Horsham and Inchkeith Drive, in Dunfermline, Fife.
Meanwhile, Leamington Spa came top of the tree with an average download broadband speed of 18.87Mb.
Streets in England's southern counties perform especially badly in the tests, with West Sussex and Hampshire together accounting for a quarter of the 20 slowest streets.
In the list of 50, five streets were in Derbyshire, while Hampshire, Gloucestershire, Suffolk and the area around Glasgow had four each.
Ernest Doku, technology expert at uSwitch.com, said many areas of the country are benefiting from superfast fibre optics speeds, but some houses enjoy speeds that can "hardly be considered a broadband service at all".
"What is particularly interesting is that many of the streets that feature in the list aren't in the far-flung countryside, but rather in more urban areas, nearer to exchanges
and where we would expect to see higher download speeds across the board," he added.
Mr Doku continued: "Being stuck in the slow lane is a frustrating situation, with many of us now considering broadband to be an essential service. In the meantime, home broadband users should test their broadband speeds regularly to check that they are getting the best possible package for their area, and not be afraid or complacent about switching providers if they feel they can get a better service elsewhere."
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