Broadband divide leaves Surrey road in slow lane - while Cheshire street is 5,000 times faster
A Surrey road has the slowest internet speeds in the UK, according to a report, as broadband experts warned the digital divide was growing wider.
Analysis of almost 400,000 speed tests revealed that residents of Queens Road, in Weybridge, had the most sluggish broadband, with an average speed of just 0.12 megabits per second (mbps).
This was more than 5,000 times slower than the fastest speeds found on Dale Lane in Appleton, Cheshire, which were recorded at just under 640 mbps.
The difference in speeds mean that it would take residents in Queens Road almost five days to download a two-hour high-definition film, compared with just 80 seconds for people in Appleton.
The report, compiled by the broadband comparison company Uswitch and based on speed tests taken on its site, found that the gap between the fastest and slowest speed had widened vastly in the last year, as the difference had been just 800 times faster in 2019.
The company said the increase was likely to be due to new ultra-fast services becoming available this year that could reach upwards of 500 mbps.
It also said that the slowest speeds recorded were not always representative of the speeds people could get in an area, as some customers were on deals that provided narrower bandwidth than was available.
Uswitch found that seven of the 10 streets recording the slowest speeds had faster bandwidth available.
Ernest Doku, a broadband expert at Uswitch, says: "The digital divide that runs through Britain has grown dramatically in the last year, with the fastest street's broadband more than 5,000 times quicker than the slowest.
"We don't want to see large swathes of the country left behind on shoddy connections."
Other places listed as having the slowest broadband spots in the country were Feltham in London; Monkton in Devon; Great Maplestead in Essex and Wokingham in Berkshire.
In contrast, Milton Keynes, Lisburn in Northern Ireland, Leicester and Henlow in Bedfordshire had some of the fastest speeds available.
Despite the divide, the report found that 54 per cent of people reached "superfast" speeds of 30mbps compared with 22 per cent five years ago.
The figures come as the Government last week quietly scaled back its pledge to roll-out gigabit (1,000 mbps) capable broadband across the entire UK by 2025, revising the target to 85 per cent of the country by that time.
