How one York street has Britain’s slowest – and fastest – broadband speeds

A York street has both the slowest and the fastest internet in Britain.

Kingsclere in Huntington, which last year was reported as having the slowest broadband speeds in the UK, actually also has access to some of the fastest, thanks to full fibre infrastructure which is being rolled out across the city.

The full fibre network currently passes 43,000 homes and businesses across York and is being built by FibreNation, the engineering technology company behind TalkTalk’s Ultra Fibre Optic (UFO).

With capability to deliver gigabit internet speeds (1000 Mbps) and host multiple simultaneous devices, the network will reach 55,000 homes and businesses across the city later this year and make York FibreNation’s first UK Gigabit city.

4.5K times faster

The research, which was carried out by uSwitch and published in December 2019, identified Kingsclere as having an average speed of just 0.22 Mbps, 246 times slower than the UK average of 54.2 Mbps for standard fibre. The report highlighted that residents could be missing out on faster speeds due to lack of awareness.

Nigel Stainforth, who lives on the street and works in IT, has been using TalkTalk UFO since it was first available on Kingsclere in 2016.

Andrew and his family can experience internet speeds more than 4,500 times faster than their neighbours who are using standard broadband. He said:

• When I saw the uSwitch figures, I thought they were a joke, Kingsclere may have been the slowest street once, but it’s definitely one of the fastest now!”

  It was a no-brainer for us to connect to Ultra Fibre Optic when it arrived on our street.

  The price with TalkTalk is affordable and, as a family of five with teenagers and young adults, we’re heavy internet users.

  With numerous computers, laptops, phones and other devices in use at the same time around the house we used to have real problems getting online, and we couldn’t all get on at once. Now the only limitation is the capability of the devices we’re using.

  Even when we are all streaming or downloading movies at once, there is no delay or buffering and the service is never at full capacity.
  

Gigabit speeds

Critical to the infrastructure for the next 100 years, only 10% of the UK currently has access to a full fibre network compared with up to 80% elsewhere in Europe.

City communications and engagement manager of FibreNation Beci Fuller said: “It’s clear that the UK’s slowest street for broadband is actually one of the fastest in the country!

“We’re thrilled that residents on Kingsclere can access our full fibre network and take advantage of gigabit internet speeds. We look forward to more York residents and businesses being able to experience the difference as we continue to roll out our network across the city.”