The Devon County Council (DCC) has released the results of its Digital Devon survey, which found that 22% of the UK county suffered from slow broadband ISP connections. The study began last September and asked thousands of people in the area to use a special website - www.devonbbsurvey.com - in order to analyse their broadband connections.

The results have lead to fears that some significant parts of Devon are being left behind, despite the fact that over 98% of the local population are covered by ADSL based broadband services. However ADSL can easily become unreliable and slow, especially for those residing further away from their local telephone exchange.

Results from the survey will be used to help form Devon's 2009-2013 strategy for Information and Communication Technology (ICT), which has already recognised the importance of Next Generation Access (NGA) or super-fast broadband as being "essential for Devon’s knowledge-based economy".


Under Devon's existing strategy the county aims to have 100% broadband coverage by 2013, with "average bandwidth speed[s]" being 20Mbps (10Mbps minimum). They also hope to be in the top quarter for affordable quality broadband. We very much doubt that an average speed of 20Mbps would be achievable by 2013 without a more significant investment but it's good to set your goals high.