Britain's Best and Worst Areas for Broadband Revealed

SURREY, ENGLAND, October 09, 2010 (Press-News.org) The research found that, with an average download speed of 7.72 Mbps, Liverpool topped the chart as the postcode area with the fastest broadband speeds; compared to Dumfries, which receives an average speed of just 2.89 Mbps (further results are presented in the table below).

The speed data was collated between the months of March and August of this year and a total of 48,408 test results were taken into consideration.

Rob Webber, commercial director of Broadband Expert, says: "Our results show that there are vast disparities between broadband speeds across the UK, with towns and cities only 50 miles apart differing by speeds of 3.12 Mbps or more - such as Liverpool and Llandudno; and Cleveland and Durham.

"We're all becoming more reliant on the Internet for work and leisure and it's frustrating for those who receive inadequate broadband speeds. Studies also show that broadband speeds are a contributing factor to a region's future economic prosperity. In our opinion, the Government's pledge to make superfast broadband available in the majority of homes and businesses by 2017 cannot come soon enough and I'm sure residents and workers from the areas at the bottom of the table will also agree."

Broadband speeds are affected by a number of variables, for example: the type of connection (cable and ADSL2+ typically deliver faster speeds than standard ADSL broadband); the existing infrastructure of a region's communication network; the proximity of the property to the phone exchange; and the number of people sharing the line supplying the connection -known as the contention ratio.

The ten fastest and ten slowest broadband speed areas in Britain:

Fastest:

Area Broadband Speed (Mbps)

Liverpool 7.72
Cleveland 7.51
Croydon 7.44
Wigan 7.37
Lincoln 7.36
Sutton 6.99
Dundee 6.96
Dudley 6.96
Motherwell 6.96
Luton 6.93

Slowest:

Area Broadband Speed (Mbps)

Dumfries 2.89
Galashiels 3.22
Shrewsbury 3.46
Inverness 3.61
Llandudno 3.83
Worcester 3.87
Hereford 3.94
Colchester 4.23
Carlisle 4.29
Durham 4.39

Please visit www.broadband-expert.co.uk/broadband/speedtest/results/areas/mar-aug10/ for more regional results.

Website: http://www.broadband-expert.co.uk