Ballymena is a broadband blackspot- survey reveals

A NEW survey has revealed that Ballymena is a black spot in Northern Ireland for slow broadband speeds.

With a speed of 1.8 Mbps, Ballymena is the only Northern Ireland area that appears on the list of the slowest recorded speed in the UK according to the survey carried out by broadband comparison site Top10.com.

In all, 20 blackspots were identified, 19 of which are villages or small towns in rural areas.

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Other towns with slow broadband speeds include Duns in the Scottish Borders, and Harbury in Warwickshire, which averaged download speeds of 1.43Mbps and 1.51Mbps respectively.

Derrick McCourt, who is originally from Ballymena and is now the Regional Director for Microsoft in Scotland and Wales, told the Times that Ballymena’s broadband speed is unacceptable.

He said: “In my role I am constantly engaging with the respective governments on the need for the right sort of broadband infrastructure for their economies to be competitive in a global market place.

“I find it shocking and frankly a little embarrassing that my home town has such a woeful ranking. I think it’s worth bringing this to the attention of local business and politicians to have a shared voice to the government and telecomms providers that such a large town needs the right sort of digital infrastructure to be competitive, not even on a global scale but even just in a Northern Ireland context.”

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The survey is particularly appropriate considering the Government’s decision to delay until 2015 a roll-out of high speed broadband access which would have guaranteed speeds of at least 2Mbps.

The survey recorded the average speeds of at least 50 broadband speed tests in each location between August and October, and follows on from a data release last month of average download speeds in major towns and cities.