UK’s slowest broadband street revealed

It may look and sound like a charming place, but Mount Pleasant in the Suffolk town of Halesworth has the slowest broadband than any other street in the UK.

Mount Pleasant

Mount Pleasant

Another street suffering from painfully slow speeds is Forestfield, in the West Sussex town of Horsham, where the average broadband speed is a measly 0.134Mbps.

As for somewhat speedier areas, Leamington Spa in Warwickshire has the fastest average download broadband speed in the UK at 18.87Mbps. That's more than 147 times faster than in Mount Pleasant.

West Sussex and Hampshire were two of the worst counties for 1990s-level speeds, accounting for a quarter of the UK's 20 slowest streets.

"While many areas of the country are already benefiting from the considerable investment into super-fast fibre optic networks, our research highlights the plight of households at the other end of the spectrum, struggling with download speeds so poor that in some cases it can hardly be considered a broadband service at all," Ernest Doku, technology expert at uSwitch.com.

"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."

Doku called on providers to up their game and provide better coverage for all.

The debate over superfast broadband was sparked into life again last week as culture secretary Jeremy Hunt called for a solution to bickering over fibre infrastructure.

A number of ISPs, including Virgin and TalkTalk, have complained BT is charging too much to let others use its fibre ducts and poles. BT thinks its prices are more than fair and are below European averages.

Tom Brewster

Tom Brewster is currently an associate editor at Forbes and an award-winning journalist who covers cyber security, surveillance, and privacy. Starting his career at ITPro as a staff writer and working up to a senior staff writer role, Tom has been covering the tech industry for more than ten years and is considered one of the leading journalists in his specialism.

He is a proud alum of the University of Sheffield where he secured an undergraduate degree in English Literature before undertaking a certification from General Assembly in web development.