Posted: 17th Aug, 2011 By: MarkJ

A new
uSwitch study has used data from
400,000 internet speed tests (conducted between May and July 2011) to determine the
slowest towns and villages in the UK for broadband ISP performance. Sadly
Cranbrook, a medieval rural town in Kent (England), topped the list with an average download speed of just
1.32Mbps (Megabits per second).
Ernest Doku, uSwitch's Technology Expert, said:
"This is black and white evidence that thousands of homes are making do with download speeds well below the national average and suggests that the British broadband is still failing to deliver. Fast broadband speeds should be available to everyone, not just for those people living in heavily urbanised areas. These latest figures highlight that, despite considerable investment, many areas of the UK are still living in the broadband dark ages."
UK Top 20 Slowest Broadband Towns and Villages
1. Cranbrook, Kent 1.32Mbps
2. Tregaron, Ceredigion, Wales 1.48Mbps
3. Lavant, Chichester, Sussex 1.65Mbps
4. Charlton Down, Dorset 1.69Mbps
5. Malvern, Worcestershire 1.79Mbps
6. Oswestry, Shropshire 1.81Mbps
7. King‟s Lynn, Norfolk 1.82Mbps
8. Lowestoft, Suffolk 1.82Mbps
9. Basingstoke, Hampshire 1.94Mbps
10. Nuneaton, Warwickshire 1.95Mbps
11. Lampeter, Ceredigion, Wales 1.96Mbps
12. Pulborough, Sussex 1.97Mbps
13. Irvine, Ayrshire, Scotland 1.98Mbps
14. Yeovil, Somerset 2.01Mbps
15. Grantham, Lincolnshire 2.01Mbps
16. Ashford, Kent 2.17Mbps
17. Eastgate, Norfolk 2.24Mbps
18. Hastings, Sussex 2.25Mbps
19. Dover, Kent 2.26Mbps
20. Burton upon Trent, Staffordshire 2.45Mbps
By contrast
Leamington Spa (Warwickshire) was found to have the
fastest average broadband download speed in the UK at 18.87Mbps, which is over 14 times faster than Cranbrook. Ofcom's May 2011 data found that the average UK download speed stood at 6.8Mbps.
In fairness the above data fails to reflect that the slowest towns and villages are those that lack any broadband connectivity at all. Meanwhile many smaller villages simply won't have been aware of the survey and so wouldn't appear above.
The UK government currently aims to make a minimum broadband download speed of 2Mbps available to everybody by 2015, although it wants 90% of the country to have access to a superfast (25Mbps+) service by the same date.