Location, location, location is fairly high up on our list when looking for a new place to live which includes how quiet’s the area, are the transport links any good, how close are the schools and so on. But so much is the reliance now on accessing the internet, another question many new buyers are asking is ‘how quick is the broadband on that street?’
If you moved to one of the areas I’m about to tell you and hadn’t asked this question, you’d be throwing your computer out the window in frustration and estate agents are saying that the streets with very poor broadband could have a negative impact on the property’s value.
The speeds vary wildly throughout the UK with those living up North achieving twice the average broadband speed to those of us living down South.
To give you some idea of the extremes, one street in Kent (Williamson Road in Romney Marsh) has been voted as having the slowest broadband in the country and according to uswitch.com, it recorded a dire speed of 0.54Mbps. To watch a two hour film, you’d need 19 hours of your patient time! That would turn a very good film into a very bad and frustrating one in no time.
If you want to have the fastest broadband in the UK, you’ll need to move to Sandy Lane in Cannock, Staffordshire. The average speeds recorded there were 135 times quicker than in Kent. To put this into perspective, it would take as little as 8 minutes to download a two hour film. Below you’ll see a list of the top 10 streets with the slowest and fastest broadband speeds in the UK.
IS YOUR BROADBAND SLOW?
So if you’re broadband’s slower than what you’d expect, here’s my 5.1 guide on what you can do.
1) Carry out a test to find out what speed you’re actually getting. Go to speedtest.net and click on Begin Test.
2) If your test was done using Wi-Fi, I’d suggest you switch off the wireless on your computer and connect directly to the router with an Ethernet cable and run the same test again.
3) If the results are the same for both and you’re still not satisfied, skip to point 4. If the results for both tests are very different and the Ethernet cable test was significantly quicker, then the reason is down to the Wi-Fi connectivity and signal strength to the Wi-Fi router and nothing to do with the actual broadband speed from the Internet Service Provider (ISP).
Your poor Wi-Fi speed could be down to the thickness of the walls in your property, some other equipment is causing interference with your Wi-Fi, you’ve using a low specification or old Wi-Fi technology or it could be a combination of all three.
4) To achieve the optimum broadband speed, make sure your router is connected to the master telephone socket in your house. This will be the one nearest your front door. *
5) Check your ISP’s contract and see what plan you’re on and what speed you should be achieving. You’ll never get the maximum speed quoted but you shouldn’t be far from it.
5.1) If you’re still unhappy after all these checks, I’d suggest you call your ISP and see what they can advise you. Maybe they’re aware of a fault with your line or they can upgrade you to a better package.
N.B The speed of your internet is totally dependent on how far your street is from the telephone exchange and the further you are – the slower your broadband will be.
uSwitch.com Top 10 Slowest Broadband Speeds
1) Williamson Road, Lydd-on-Sea, Romney Marsh, Kent – 0.535 (Mbps) – slowest
2) Great Fen Road, Soham, Ely, Cambridgeshire – 0.547 (Mbps)
3) Styles Close, Luton, Bedfordshire – 0.800 (Mbps)
4) Mardu Lane, Clun, Craven Arms, Shropshire – 0.884 (Mbps)
5) Weston Beggard Lane, Weston Beggard, Hereford, Herefordshire – 0.914 (Mbps)
6) Cheadle Road, Alton, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire – 0.916 (Mbps)
7) Mill Lane, Horndon on the Hill, Stanford-le-Hope, Essex – 0.928 (Mbps)
8) Llansadwrn, Menai Bridge, Isle of Anglesey – 0.948 (Mbps)
9) Solway Road, Moresby Parks, Whitehaven, Cumbria – 0.963 (Mbps)
10) Shorthorn Road, Stratton Strawless, Norwich, Norfolk – 0.964 (Mbps)
uSwitch.com Top 10 Fastest Broadband Speeds
1) Sandy Lane, Hatherton, Cannock, Staffordshire – 72.86 (Mbps) – fastest
2) Stockfield Road, Yardley, Birmingham, West Midlands – 71.37 (Mbps)
3) Aigburth Drive, Liverpool, Merseyside – 71.20 (Mbps)
4) Southhouse Broadway, Edinburgh, City of Edinburgh – 68.53 (Mbps)
5) Winchcombe Close, Swindon, Wiltshire – 68.41 (Mbps)
6) Alexandra Court, East Lindsey, Skegness, Lincolnshire – 68.19 (Mbps)
7) The Close, Conway Avenue, Thornton-Cleveleys, Blackpool – 65.29 (Mbps)
8) University Terrace, Pittenweem, Anstruther, Fife – 64.62 (Mbps)
9) Bulwer Gardens, Barnet, Greater London – 64.56 (Mbps)
10) New Church Road, Hove, The City of Brighton & Hove – 61.03 (Mbps)
*Â This applies to broadband connected to a BT telephone socket only.
