In terms of homes on high-speed internet, the Wiltshire city comes top in the UK, with an estimated penetration rate of 59.8 per cent as of 30 June 2006. Swindon has pole position since December 2005, when 51.1 per cent of the local households were on broadband.

Point Topic’s report shows that penetration rates grew steadily throughout the country, but there is still a digital divide and it’s deepening in some areas.

By the end of June, less than half of the UK (40.4 per cent) was on broadband. In some of the rural areas, in special in Northern Ireland, Wales and the East Midlands, less than one in three households had broadband access to the internet.

At the other end of the spectrum, the ‘City of Tomorrow’, Swindon, will start feeling the pressure of the approaching competition despite its good performance in the first half of 2006. In the last report Cardiff occupied an already good 15th place in the ranking, with a residential broadband penetration rate of 46.7 per cent; at the end of June 2006 it had moved up to the second position, with 57.8 per cent.