A market town in rural Aberdeenshire is home to Scotland's fastest broadband speeds - apparently confounding the belief that being in the north of the country is a barrier for connectivity.

New research shows that two streets in Inverurie with the fastest broadband speeds in Scotland are in the top ten speediest in the UK.

The Scots street with the  fastest broadband is Cairn Wynd, Inverurie, which boasts average speeds of 276.4Mbps, 134 times faster than the slowest street for broadband in Scotland, remote Aultachruine in Glenshiel, Kyle, with average download speeds of 2.06Mbps.

It would take the residents of Aultachruine almost seven hours to download a two-hour HD film and more than two and a half hours to download a 45-minute HD TV show. By contrast, the people of Cairn Wynd would take just three minutes and six seconds to download the same film or a mere one minute and nine seconds to download the same show.

The comparison site Uswitch.com, which carried out the research, said the results still revealed a huge postcode lottery in access to gold standard superfast broadband - sometimes in the same local area.

The Herald:

In Stirling, residents on Bohun Court enjoy ultrafast speeds of 131.99Mbps, while one of the country’s worst streets, Grampian Road, is just nine minutes’ drive away — with download times 28 times slower at 4.66Mbps.

Ernest Doku, broadband expert at Uswitch.com, 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’s.

“It’s great that more of us are enjoying ultrafast broadband, but we don’t want to see large swathes of the country left behind on shoddy connections that aren’t suitable for modern life.

“With millions of us working from home and watching more streaming TV at the moment, a good broadband connection is more important than ever."

The slowest and fastest UK streets have been revealed by more than 398,973 ‘real world’ speed tests run by broadband users over the last year.

The number of speed tests is up 225% on last year’s tally of 122,845, with uSwitch saying the dramatic rise suggesting that consumers have been paying closer attention to the performance of their home broadband during lockdown.

And the analysts say the good news is that the number of broadband users enjoying faster speeds is growing.

The Herald:

More than half of users (54%) now get speeds of more than 30Mbps, up from under a quarter (22%) five years ago.

But despite the fact that superfast broadband - giving downloads speeds of 30Mbps or more)- is available to 95% of the country, a recent Uswitch survey found that only six in ten (60%) believe they can access it in their local area.

USwitch believe there remains a lack of awareness of the faster speeds available. Of the ten slowest streets, seven have access to a quicker service, suggesting that consumers are being deprived of better broadband simply because they aren’t checking.

“One of the biggest obstacles stopping people from getting faster downloads speeds is the lack of awareness regarding superfast and ultrafast broadband," added Mr Doku.

“For example, some people on Scotland’s fastest street, Cairn Wynd, enjoy speeds above 800Mbps, while others only get 8Mbps.

“And of the UK’s ten slowest streets, seven could have access to faster broadband, so we urge residents there — and anyone else unhappy with their broadband speeds — to do a quick check online to see what speeds they could be getting.”

The Herald:

The UK’s slowest broadband speed was a mere 0.12Mbps in Queens Road, Weybridge in Surrey an incredible 5,330 times slower than the UK’s fastest street, Dale Lane in Appleton, Cheshire, where average speeds reached 639.67Mbps over the past year.

USwitch said last year the UK’s worst street was only 830 times slower than the fastest street suggesting that the nation’s digital divide is growing with the rollout of full fibre broadband (FTTP) that is bringing ultrafast speeds to parts of the country.

The study comes a week after farmers and crofters in Scotland were being asked to comment on how broadband and connectivity affects them and their businesses.

NFU Scotland, which is concerned many businesses are being held back due to poor connections, is asking their members to fill out a connectivity survey which will help build a case to lobby for improved mobile and broadband connectivity for the industry. It closes on January 4.