Suffolk village has UK’S slowest broadband

Broadband speeds are so slow in parts of Britain that it takes longer to download a film than it does to fly to Australia.

Research from comparison site uswitch found that homes in Thorpe Lane (pictured), in the Suffolk village of Trimley St Martin, suffer the slowest speeds in the country, at a snail-like 0.68Mbps.

This is 53 times slower than the average speed of 36.2Mbps, and 260 times slower than the fastest speeds (177Mbps), found in Benford Avenue, Motherwell.

Downloading a two-hour HD film in Thorpe Lane would take 21 hours; in Benford Avenue it would take just five minutes.

One resident in Thorpe Lane, Ann Owen, 65, said speeds are much faster in her cottage in the Orkney Isles. She added: “The broadband here is incredibly slow. You cannot do two or three things on your laptop at once as other people manage to do”.

Thorpe Lane is a significant distance from the nearest telephone exchange, which connects to the web via slow copper-based wires. Benford Avenue uses Virgin Media’s fibre-broadband network, which can deliver speeds up to 300Mbps.

Uswitch’s figures reveal the UK’S stark broadband divide. Streets in Pickering, Gloucester, Chorley and Andover all endure speeds under 1Mbps. In contrast, areas in Leicester, Swindon, Middlesbrough and Halesowen all enjoy speeds above 150Mbps. See the full list at www.snipca.com/26489.