The results of our nationwide broadband survey are in! Are you one of the many thousands putting up with bad broadband just because of where you live?
Update: 11 July 2017
Our Fix Bad Broadband roadshow has been a roaring success!
For the past two weeks, we’ve been visiting supporters in their hometowns hearing about their broadband problems. By taking our Fix Bad Broadband campaign on the road, we’ve been piloting whether these kind of events help us to reach more people, find new supporters and hear their powerful stories.
In Luton, for example, one new supporter told us that in his small village the internet connection was so bad that his business was failing to grow. It often took him well over an hour to check his emails as the connection would intermittently drop in and out. And sadly he told us the situation was causing him understandable financial hardship and emotional stress.
This is unfortunately not a unique story. The breadth of interest from communities and scale of concern from individuals continues to inspire us in our campaigning with you. We have many more stories like this and will be sharing some of them as the campaign ramps up.
To this end we also stopped at Parliament. During the day we spoke to 71 MPs about our Fix Bad Broadband campaign. They showed great enthusiasm to work with us and champion our broadband campaigning. Needless to say, we’re going to be continuing our conversations with MPs in an effort to get the voices of unhappy broadband customers heard in Parliament.
We’re asking MPs to #FixBadBroadband. Help us build a picture of the UK’s internet health by using our speed test: https://t.co/WhaU4dMQmZ pic.twitter.com/gbUYOjNIvr
— Which? (@WhichUK) July 5, 2017
We also continued to promote our speed test tool during the roadshow. With 500,000 uses to date, we are building a clearer picture of problems across the UK, but we still need more in order to paint the fullest picture of the nation’s broadband health.
Thank you to all those who came out to see us. With your help we will improve the broadband service customers currently receive.
Original Convo: 27 June 2017
The UK’s best and worst broadband speeds have been revealed and the results make for very interesting reading.
The good, the bad and the almost there
Our speed test data analysis found the best-performing areas were Tamworth in the West Midlands, Reading, Adur in West Sussex, Enfield and Dundee City, in that order. However, those areas letting down residents as the worst-performing include the Orkney and Shetland Islands, the Highlands, Ryedale in Yorkshire and Purbeck in Dorset. Average tests in these areas were all below 10Mbps.
The government’s own Universal Service Obligation suggests that the minimum download speed anyone should be experiencing is 10Mbps. However, our research shows that 12 areas, broken down in our research by local authority, aren’t quite achieving even this benchmark.
Of course, you may very well assume that many of the worst performing areas are going to be rural and for the most part, you’d be right. However, many residents living in some of the most built-up areas also lag behind the national average of 17Mbps. For example, speed tests taken in the London Boroughs of Southwark, Westminster, Lambeth, Hackney and the City of London all fall behind this download speed; a figure determined from our research.
Here’s a map of the best and worst locations for broadband coverage in the UK based on speed tests. How does your area fair?
Receiving a good broadband service can often be something of a postcode lottery but, aside from complaining to your provider until you’re blue in the face or moving house, there are of couple of other things you can do about it.
First and foremost. you can take our broadband speed test and log your results with us so we can continue to build on our current research. With over 400,000 uses, our tool is helping us create a complete picture of the UK’s broadband health. Click the button below to submit your speed.
After you’ve done that, the next thing you can do is to come visit us on our roadshow!
Fix Bad Broadband roadshow
Over the next two weeks we’re going to be taking our broadband campaign on the road and we’re inviting you to come and speak to our team about the problems you face getting online.
Come and visit us when our Fix Bad Broadband van rolls into a town near you.
Our crack team of broadband boffins will be on hand to offer tips on how you can improve your under-performing connection, share details about our Fix Bad Broadband campaign and invite you to get involved, and listen to your stories so we can go to government, internet service providers and regulators with the real-world problems faced by customers all across the country.
Is your broken broadband holding you back? Tell us how slow internet affects your life in the comments below, but of course we’d much rather meet our valued supporters face-to-face on the Fix Bad Broadband roadshow.
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