The UK government might be claiming that more than 90 per cent of the UK population is able to access superfast broadband speeds, but the truth is, most of the users cannot even access speed over 24 Mbps.
Comparison site Uswitch performed the internet speed analysis in over 42 cities in the UK and compared actual speeds instead of top speeds claimed by the providers.
Hull has the slowest broadband speeds
Out of all the cities that were analysed by Uswitch, Middlesbrough had the fastest broadband speed with 34.36 Mbps. While the slowest cities included, Milton Keynes with 17.1 Mbps, Aberdeen with 15.67 Mbps speed and Hull had the slowest speed with just 12.42 Mbps. The reason being, Hull is the only place in the UK which has no Openreach lines.
Only 10 per cent of the users were reported to have speeds over 50 Mbps while over 30 per cent of the total users had broadband speeds less than 5 Mbps.
According to the research, the main reason for this was the uncertainty to take up fibre broadband, availability and its related costs as well. Most the speed decline was noticed in the non-commercial places and small towns.
The report had tested over 500,000 consumers over the period of six months. Releasing a statement, broadband expert at Uswitch, Ewan Taylor-Gibson said, “Instead, independent telecoms supplier KCOM provides the broadband service. Although KCOM is currently rolling out ultrafast-capable, fibre-to-the-home connections in Hull, actual speed tests taken by broadband users would suggest this hasn’t reached enough homes yet to make an impact on the average.”
“With capital cities such as London and Edinburgh not on that list, we should be asking what more can be done to encourage the adoption of superfast broadband now it’s so widely available.
Giving a contradictory statement, Ed Vaizey, the cultural minister had said last month that, “We now have 93 per cent of the country able to receive fibre, 90 per cent of the country able to get superfast speeds of 24 megabits and above, and 50 per cent of the country able to get ultrafast broadband speeds of 100 megabits and above.”
Even with this report, there is still hope. The report revealed that some of the cities do have really fast internet and the only reason others don’t have that kind of fast internet is because they don’t have the right infrastructure.
A similar report about the 4G speeds was released last month where it was found out that EE limited customers get the lowest speed on their mobile phones, after which the company released a statement saying they will be investing more money in the infrastructure to get a better 4G connectivity all over the UK.
May be this report will serve as a wakeup call for broadband companies as well and may be they will start improving their infrastructure to provide better speed to their customers .
