Web speed winners and losers revealed

The best and worst spots to surf the web in the district have been revealed.

Becket Mews in Canterbury comes out top with a rate of 53.3 megabits per second, followed by Harkness Drive with 51.3 Mbps.

Speeds in Becket Mews are 19 times faster than in Poplar Drive, Herne Bay, which features in the county’s 10 slowest broadband areas, along with London Road in Upper Harbledown and Wincheap, with speeds of 2.7, 2.8 and 3.2 Mbps respectively.

Redwell Grove in Kings Hill is home to the fastest broadband in Kent, reaching speeds of 178.4 Mbps.

Dani Warner, broadband expert at uswitch.com, said the research showed the extent of the UK’S “digital divide”.

“Streets that are relatively close geographically can be light years apart when it comes to the download speeds they are getting,” he said.

“Awareness of fibre broadband availability continues to be the biggest hurdle to people getting faster download speeds.

“Over a third of the slowest streets have access to superfast speeds, so people living there have no need to be crawling along on completely unusable internet services.

“The industry should be doing more to help consumers understand what sort of broadband they can get at home. And for those who can’t yet obtain faster speeds - which the industry is directly aiming to address with the rollout of full-fibre - improvements really can’t come soon enough.”

An Openreach spokesman said: “There are more than 17.5 million homes and businesses in the UK that can order a better service over our network today, but who haven’t yet upgraded – meaning they lose out on more reliable, resilient connections that would allow them to work from home, access every entertainment platform, and manage smart home devices at the same time without so much as a second thought.

“At Openreach, we are committed to playing our part in upgrading the country to better broadband.”