Wigan borough's postcode lottery of broadband speeds

The festive season of 2020 will be remembered as the year we camped on the sofa to watch films in between video-calling loved ones from our homes.

However, for some families in Wigan, this year’s frustrations are set to continue with new figures revealing crippling broadband speeds in some neighbourhoods.

Across the local authority, broadband speeds range from a superfast 478.3 megabits (Mbps) per second to a snail-paced 3.6 Mbps, according to data from Uswitch.com.

It means families using Zoom, Skype or Facebook to speak to relatives and friends could be faced with annoying freezes, cut-outs and sound delays.

Meanwhile, those downloading classic movies could be left waiting up to 120 hours, compared to just one minute 20 seconds in neighbourhoods with the fastest speeds.

The average broadband speeds were collected in postcode areas with more than 50 addresses through at least one test in the 12 months up to October this year. In total, nearly 400,000 tests were done.

They revealed, in Wigan the postcodes with the slowest speeds were:

1) WN75NU, in Leigh West, with an average speed of 3.6Mbps

2) WN68BE, in Shevington with Lower Ground, average 4.2Mbps

3) WN35JE, in Worsley Mesnes, average 4.2Mbps

The postcodes with the fastest speeds were:

1) WN36HP, in Winstanley, average 478.3Mbps

2) WN13RW, in Wigan Central, average 394.5Mbps

3) WN21DZ, in Aspull New Springs Whelley, average 320.2Mbps

Ernest Doku, broadband expert at Uswitch.com, said: “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.”

The Government recently set out a draft strategy to connect one million homes and businesses with 1,000 Mbps broadband in the hardest-to-reach areas of the UK.

It is part of a plan to provide 85 per cent of the country with broadband capable of the speed by 2025.

Minister for Digital Infrastructure, Matt Warman, said: “We will begin these procurements rapidly so broadband providers big and small can move quickly to get the job done and level up communities with this much faster, next generation broadband.”

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