Village street in top 10 for fastest broadband

A Monklands street has been named in Scotland’s top 10 for fastest broadband speeds.

Residents at the addresses in Chapelhall’s Galashiels Avenue were found to have some of the country’s top ultrafast connections during a year-long survey by utilities comparison website Uswitch.

It found that neighbours in the country’s swiftest streets would be able to fully download a two-hour HD film in just a few minutes – and more than 1000 times faster than residents at Scotland’s 10 slowest postcodes.

Completing the top 10, Galashiels Avenue came in at 311 Mbps.

The figures were determined following more than online 276,000 speed tests at nearly 55,000 postcodes across the UK; and the Monklands street qualified for its national placing after recording statistics from at least three unique IP addresses and 10 residential properties.

Uswitch say it shows “the improvements in ultrafast broadband infrastructure across Scotland with the rollout of full-fibre broadband”, and that the “dramatic rise” in the number of speed tests – more than double the figure in 2019 – “suggests that consumers have been paying closer attention to the performance of their home broadband since the start of the pandemic”.

Meanwhile, Scotland’s slowest street in the 2021 study, located in Banchory in Aberdeenshire, recorded average download speeds of just 0.28 Mbps over the course of the study.

Uswitch broadband expert Ernest Doku said: “It’s great to witness the increased uptake of ultrafast broadband, but we don’t want to see large swathes of the country left behind on shoddy connections that aren’t cutting it for modern life.

“Scotland’s broadband keeps getting quicker every year, but parts of the country continue to be left behind.

“When so many of us rely on our broadband for work, streaming films and TV, and gaming, it’s hard to imagine how frustrating such a slow connection must be.

“Initiatives like the Universal Service Obligation and Project Gigabit are helping improve connections at both ends of the spectrum.”