INDICATIVE GEOGRAPHIC SPREAD OF SLOW/NO BROADBAND
A preliminary study carried out on behalf of the BBC suggest that there maybe as many as three million homes in the UK that have under 2Mbps Internet connectivity, representing about 15% percent of homes.
The results follow on from the government saying it was planning a Universal Connectivity Commitment, guaranteeing every home in Britain at least 2Mbps.
In the map below we have taken a sample of postcodes across the UK in areas with known slow connections, or zero broadband availability, and plotted them on a map.
Red dots represent postcodes with ADSL broadband speeds of less than 512Kbps.
Blue dots represent postcodes with ADSL broadband speeds of less than 2Mbps, while black dots represent no broadband is available.
You can zoom into the map in more detail by using the slider on the left hand side, or using the plus and minus buttons.
SamKnows has taken a geographical representation of the UK and plotted 12,989 data points. These data points have been sourced from the SamKnows database of telephone exchange data and details of what service providers are offering broadband in each exchange.
This is phase one of the SamKnows Availability map. We have taken 10% of the UK's 1.7 million postcodes and plotted those points under 2Mbps.
The next stage is to focus on those areas with a high density of these data points, take the first 4 characters of that postcode area, and then generate a further series of postcodes which can then also be run against the SamKnows Availability database.
This would then give a result for additional UK postcodes, thereby increasing the number of data points.
Whilst in its current form this map should only be used as a guide. It does demonstrate the extent of the issue the UK faces with Notspots or poor connectivity.
This data is based on which Telephone Exchanges have capacity for Internet connectivity. Approximately 4,079 homes are connected to Exchanges that are not ADSL enabled.
A user may sometimes have good connectivity and can suffer performance issues, perhaps caused by network congestion, weather or even home wiring.
This is why Performance and Availability are the dual factors in determining whether the UK is going to reach the Universal Connectivity goal of 2Mbps.
SamKnows' role in this debate, initiated by the BBC following the Carter Review in January, is to raise the awareness generally of the issues that surround broadband.
If you have any views/news please don't hesitate to contact us, we'd be delighted to hear from you. You can contact us
team@samknows.com
