Ofcom maps reveal areas with poor mobile and broadband coverage

Akamai recently revealed rankings on the world’s broadband speeds in their latest State of the Internet report, where many were disappointed at how the UK placed. Many other global hot spots overtook the UK, which placed 27th in terms of average connection speeds which was measured at 5 Mbps. The report also revealed that no UK towns or cities were able to make it into the top 100 list of areas for global performance broadband speeds, which was highly dominated by cities located in Japan.

Moreover, the broadband service in Northern Ireland was also criticized, where the speeds were found to be among the lowest in the UK. While the speeds varied from town to town, they were, in general, below average, with many households running on low-speed broadband connections.

Ofcom’s latest findings reveal that there truly is much to be desired in terms of broadband development in the UK. Only 13% of the areas in the UK have access to 3G from all five mobile networks. Covered by that percentage is around 77% of residents and business establishments in the area, but it also means that over 7.7 million residents or businesses in the UK do not have access to such 3G connections.

Ofcom’s report included a set of interactive maps that showed the broadband, mobile and other coverage across the UK. The report stated: “Ofcom’s data shows considerably better household coverage compared with geographic coverage. This is because mobile providers tend to priorities investment in network infrastructure where the maximum number of consumers and businesses can be served.”

The areas that was found to have the worst 3G coverage were the Scottish Highlands and parts of Wales. Ofcom reported that there were over 38 million active active 3G connections, with 0.24GB of data downloaded per month for each connection.

Ofcom added: “We do not have any evidence to suggest that inherent network limitations are a significant contributor to the difference in data volumes across fixed and mobile networks. Large file downloads and video streaming, which represent a significant proportion of fixed line broadband traffic, are less popular on smartphones and laptops used on the move.”

The report also presented figures for broadband connections, and stated that fixed-lined connections downloaded an average of 17GB per month.

Ofcom stated: “Data from the London Internet Exchange shows that traffic over its network, which connects UK internet service providers, has increased seven fold in the past five years.”

Source – PC Pro