Britain’s fastest and slowest streets for broadband have been revealed, with roads in Essex and Conwy, Wales taking the joint top spot of worst download speed.
Erw Fawr in Henryd, and Wheatley Road in Corringham, Stanford-le-Hope both had average download speeds of 0.60 Mbps, 30 times slower than the UK average of 17.8Mbps.
Rank |
Street Name & Location |
Average Speed (Mbps) |
1= | Erw Fawr, Henryd, Conwy, Wales | 0.6 |
1= | Wheatley Road, Corringham, Stanford-le-Hope, Essex | 0.6 |
3 | Station Road, Swineshead, Boston, Lincolnshire | 0.65 |
4 | Kelvin Grove, North Shields, Tyne and Wear | 0.74 |
5 | Maple Crescent, Alveley, Bridgnorth, Shropshire | 0.91 |
6 | Evesham Road (nr Church Lane), Norton, Evesham, Worcestershire | 0.92 |
7 | Meadow View (nr Rectory Road), Castle Carrock, Brampton, Cumbria | 0.94 |
8 | Canal Street, Oakthorpe, Swadlincote, Leicestershire | 0.96 |
9 | Pickleys Lane, Doveridge, Ashbourne, Derbyshire | 0.99 |
10 | Dereham Road (nr Chancel Lane), Garvestone, Norwich, Norfolk | 1.03 |
The data, collected by uSwitch.com, shows that at that speed it would take almost 45 minutes to download one music album.
Regional valleys
As well as hosting the slowest street, Essex features a further five times in the list of the UK’s 50 slowest streets – more than any other county.
Roads in Lincolnshire, Tyne and Wear and Shropshire also feature in the top (or rather, bottom) five.
Internet inequality
Meanwhile, Loundes Road, Unstone in Derbyshire enjoys Britain’s fastest average speed of 57.58.
This means the fastest and slowest streets differ by a factor of 96. So while on Erw Fawr or Wheatley Road you’d be waiting over 15 hours to download an HD film, on Loundes Road you’d be tucking into the popcorn after just nine minutes.
Running on gas
Figures from Ofcom confirm that superfast broadband – 30Mbps or higher – is now available to almost three quarters of the UK, yet only 9% of the population is using it.
However, uSwitch.com’s data puts this figure at 15%.
Planned upgrades
Essex County Council told Tech City News that five of the six streets identified by uSwitch.com are already programmed to receive fibre either as part of the BT commercial rollout or the Superfast Essex programme.
South Hanningfield Road, in Chelmsford, is not currently included in the programme of work because our information from BT states this homes in this area are already receiving speeds of at least 2Mbps.
The FAQ section of the www.superfastessex.org website provides advice to residents in areas classed as receiving 2Mbps download speeds who believe that they are not achieving such speeds.