UK broadband speeds: fastest and slowest streets revealed

Live on the wrong street and it could take you almost five days just to download a film. Here's a look at who has the best and worst broadband speeds in the UK.

There are plenty of factors that go into determining which house you want to buy, from the commuting links to the standard of the local schools.

And one selling point that has grown in importance in recent years is the broadband service on offer.

A study by TalkTalk earlier this year suggested that as many as 62% of homebuyers would consider not buying a property they loved if it didn’t boast a strong, and reliable, broadband connection.

After the year we have had, clearly having a dependable broadband connection has never been so important.

The trouble is that the quality of the broadband connections ‒ and the speeds we enjoy ‒ can vary hugely between different streets.

Now price comparison site uSwitch has crunched the numbers to identify which streets enjoy the fastest speeds, and which have been left buffering for eternity.

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Slowest broadband speeds

The slowest broadband speeds in the entire nation, according to the study, are found in Queen’s Road, in Weybridge, Surrey. Even describing the speeds as sluggish is generous, with an average download speed of a frankly laughable 0.12 Mbps.

To put that into context, if residents wanted to download a two-hour film in high definition it would take an insane 119 hours.

There is then something of a jump to the street with the second slowest speeds in the nation, Hatchett Road in Feltham in London, where average download speeds are a still pitiful 0.38 Mbps. 

The results, which are based on almost 400,000 ‘real world’ speed tests, suggested that things are improving somewhat with more than half (54%) of users now enjoying speeds above 30Mbps, compared to a paltry 22% just five years ago.

Fastest broadband speeds

At the other end of the scale, you have Dale Lane in Appleton, Cheshire, which boasts average speeds of an incredible 639.67 Mbps.

That’s an incredible 5,330 times faster than Queens Road, and you’d only need one minute and 20 seconds to download that same two-hour film. 

It’s worth reflecting on the fact that last year the worst street in the nation was ‘only’ 830 times slower than the fastest street, a demonstration of the digital divide with some streets really feeling the benefit of the rollout of full-fibre broadband (FTTP).

Here’s how the 10 fastest streets look: 

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Don’t put up with rubbish broadband

Plenty of us are putting up with seriously underwhelming broadband, but we don’t really need to.

There are plenty of things that you can do around the house to improve the speeds and signal inside your home, from adapting your router, to simply putting it in a better location. Check out our run-through of seven steps to boost your WiFi at home. 

Alternatively, you might prefer to move to a new supplier (which will hopefully be faster and cheaper).

There are a host of sites that allow you to compare the deals on offer in your area, but don’t take it for granted that the promised speeds are what you’re actually going to get ‒ the advertised speeds only need to be received by half of the provider’s customers.

It’s also worth doing your research on how often customers of your chosen supplier end up developing issues and having to make a complaint.

Regulator Ofcom publishes this data every quarter ‒ check out our latest piece on the best and worst broadband providers.

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