Interesting Facts

Apart from its great name, Miserden in Gloucestershire is interesting because, according to cable.co.uk, it has the worst broadband in the UK. (The fastest place in the UK was Rickmansworth with download speeds of over 77Mbps, but Miserden is a digital black hole where only 17% of villagers are able to access superfast broadband, and the rest have to make do with average download speeds of 1.3Mbps.  One poor resident recorded a "staggeringly low" speed of 0.12Mbps, it would be faster to send a letter! At that rate the company worked out that it would take residents of Miserden 11 hours to download a high def version of the latest Bond film, Sceptre. Amusingly, they would get faster broadband if they moved to Everest base camp!)

According to the Indian Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, smartphone sales in India reached 100 million by the end of December, 2015. (India is growing at a phenomenal pace and the government is looking to expand rural development with broadband being laid out in rural India. According to data from analyst firm CyberMedia Research (CMR) 94% of feature-phones (as opposed to smartphones) sold in India were priced below 2,000 rupees  £21.)

According to research by the UK communications regulator Ofcom, the fairy lights on your Christmas tree can slow down your WiFi. (The research also revealed that nearly 6 million homes and offices in the UK have underperforming Wi-Fi, and it's not just fairy lights that can affect speeds: other electronic devices, including lamps, speakers, TVs and monitors can, and I believe a wet dog walking through the room will also block the signal. I often get told that WiFi is fine for our online sessions, but now I feel justified in my statement to people, use a broadband cable.)

According to a report published by the Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development, in 2010, South Korea had the fastest broadband in the world. (South Korea recorded a nice, healthy, average speed of 14.6 Mbps, while Japan occupied the second spot with an average speed of 7.9 Mbps. Constanta in Romania was found to be the fastest European city for broadband, with internet users able to download at an average of 8.23Mb. And the UK? 26th place! I checked my speed last week, and found I get a measly 3.5Mb. So, it's no wonder it takes me so long to post here!)

Nearly one fifth of people on an eight megabits per second (Mbps) broadband connection in the UK actually receive less than 2Mbps. (Because of the use of copper wiring instead of fibre optic, the signal degrades the further it travels, so to get 8Mps you would need to be located no further than 2km from an exchange. That is of course assuming they are sending out an 8Mbps signal in the first place.)

According to Thinkbroadband.com, London has the fastest broadband in the UK. (And the slowest traffic.)

An Ofcom report shows that more rural homes in the UK have broadband internet than urban dwellings do. (59% of rural households have broadband compared to 57% of urban homes.)

In the UK, super-fast broadband fibres are being laid in the sewers. (Seemingly a company called H20 networks has been rolling out a fibre-via-sewers network - known as Focus (Fibre Optical Cable Underground Sewer) since 2003. Considering what often travels down the fibres, it's quite fitting really.)