Four Lanarkshire streets have been named in Scotland’s top 10 for fastest broadband speeds.
Residents at the addresses in Cumbernauld, Hamilton and Airdrie 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.
Raith Drive in Cumbernauld was the third-fastest street in Scotland in Uswitch’s survey results, with an average broadband speed of 536 megabits per second – just behind the country’s fastest address, Murrayfield Terrace in Stirling, with 665.
Fifth and seventh places went to Hamilton streets Abbotsford Avenue and Skylands Rise, which respectively registered 473 and 389 Mbps; and completing the top 10 was Galashiels Avenue in Chapelhall, 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 Lanarkshire streets each qualified for their national placings after recording statistics from at least three unique IP addresses and 10 residential properties.
All four have broadband outstripping the previous survey’s fastest street speed of 276 Mbps, with Raith Drive reaching nearly twice that; while the Uswitch survey also concluded that average broadband speeds have risen by 10 per cent in the past year.
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 this year’s 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.”
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