Over 340k inner Londoners without high-speed internet

London one of the worst capitals in Europe for broadband speeds – behind Paris, Bucharest and Kiev

341,592 residents* in inner London¹ are without modern high-speed internet access², according to an investigation by GLA Conservative Victoria Borwick.

These boroughs suffer from old poor quality lines leading to slow connections that in many cases are lower than half the London average.³

Victoria Borwick, GLA Conservative Londonwide Assembly Member, said:

“Open Reach, the people who lay the cables in the ground, have failed inner London. Hundreds of thousands of Londoners are stuck with internet technology over a decade old. At these kinds of speeds it would take 2 hours to upload a 5-minute high-definition video to Youtube. Internet speeds this low come with a myriad of problems for people trying to work from home, let alone those trying to start a business from their residence. This isn’t just about watching catch-up TV online – this is putting residents’ livelihoods at stake.”

The Mayor of London has also recently produced a detailed map of these blackspots across London, highlighting the scale of the problem in inner boroughs:

http://maps.london.gov.uk/webmaps/nextgenbroadband/
(Red = areas with low speed residential connections)

On Wednesday Victoria will be asking the Mayor of London to work with her to lobby government to improve residential broadband in these areas.

London’s average internet speed is 25Mbps which makes it one of the worst capital cities in Europe for broadband speeds behind Paris, Bucharest, Dublin and Kiev.³ Investing in these areas will help bring the capital back up to a competitive international standard.
 

 
Notes:
*The 341,592 residents are all internet users
¹ Borough Table

Borough	Residents without high-speed internet
Westminster	103,000
Tower Hamlets	79,500
Southwark	54,600
Wandsworth	22,200
Camden	19,800
Hackney	15,800
Islington	15,600
Hammersmith and Fulham	12,000
Kensington and Chelsea	11,200
City of London	6,700
Total	340,400

Calculated by using the OfCom 2014 NGA Coverage by London Borough http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/market-data-research/market-data/infrastructure/infrastructure-2014/fixed-bb/ and the number of internet users by borough http://data.london.gov.uk/dataset/internet-use-borough-and-population-sub-groups
 
² “Next Generation Access” (NGA) is 30mbps and above is what is commonly is known as fibre broadband [For Sky, BT, TalkTalk, Plusnet is 38mbps and above]. It is becoming the new European residential standard.
 
³ Appendix 6 http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201415/ldselect/lddigital/111/111.pdf