Broadband Isn't Fast Enough For Browsing, Say A Third Of Rural Residents

There's a good deal of unhappiness regarding the state of broadband in rural areas of the UK, a fact that a new piece of research has highlighted.

A survey put into motion by Europasat (a satellite broadband provider) has found that many rural residents are unhappy with the speed of their connection, and the monopoly BT has been given in terms of delivering broadband out to the sticks.

Over a third of those surveyed said that their broadband wasn't fast enough to enable them to browse the web "effectively", and 28 per cent felt unhappy with their current rural broadband service.

Furthermore, 51 per cent said they were unhappy about the government giving BT a monopoly when it comes to the £1.2 billion rural broadband programme, and only 23 per cent saw BT's monopoly here as a good thing. A third of residents also said that they had been promised a super-fast broadband scheme by the government which they didn't receive.

Overall, 36 per cent of those in rural areas said the government had let them down in terms of their broadband service.

Slow broadband, unsurprisingly, is also seen as a big issue when it comes to the desirability of an area, with a quarter of respondents indicating that the connection speeds in their area would put people off moving there. A third also believed that sluggish broadband was having a negative effect on local businesses.

As for which area felt most negatively about its broadband? That would be the rural parts of Leeds, where 39 per cent expressed their unhappiness with their connections.