UPD KC Claim Brantingham is Britain’s Village with the Fastest Broadband

The incumbent ISP for Hull and its surrounding areas in East Yorkshire, KC (KCOM), has announced that they’re “laying claim” to the title of “village with the fastest broadband speeds in Britain” after pegging Brantingham for the achievement thanks to its average download speed of 78Mbps. Gigaclear and B4RN may have a thing or two to say about that.

KC claims that 50 of the 72 properties in the sleepy conservation village, which incidentally has a population of around 370 people, have already signed up to their new superfast broadband (Lightstream FTTP/C) service. Excellent news and further proof that strong demand exists in the more digitally deprived areas.

But is it the “fastest” in Britain? Well only if you’re happy to exclude the 1000Mbps capable Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH/P) style services being deployed by other operators (e.g. Gigaclear, B4RN etc.) in villages around the country.

In addition, the unofficial maximum of KC’s Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) dominated service (with some slower FTTC being used in rural areas) is currently set at 350Mbps, although they don’t tend to offer the maximum speed to home users on normal products. Even BT’s similar 330Mbps capable FTTP service is in a handful of villages (e.g. Deddington).

Sue Helmont, KC’s Director of Consumer Services, said:

“We’re delighted to have helped put Brantingham on the map for superfast broadband. Best-in-Britain broadband has really added to the appeal of living in what was already one of the region’s most desirable villages.”

Naturally we’ve put the point about B4RN and Gigaclear to KC, not least since both have seen even stronger uptake in some villages, and will report back if they reply.

UPDATE 3:16pm

KC have told ISPreview.co.uk that they’re basing their claim on average actual speeds properties in Brantingham are receiving (including the speeds of homes that aren’t taking the service), not the maximum they could receive through Lightstream (350Mbps). Never the less there’s still a lack of hard evidence for judging this sort of claim.