A HUGE gap in internet speeds across Brighton and Hove has been revealed.

New figures highlight painfully slow broadband speeds in some neighbourhoods.

Across the city, broadband speeds range from a superfast 380.5 megabits (Mbps) per second to a snail-paced 0.5 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 movies could be left waiting up to 120 hours, compared to just one minute 20 seconds in neighbourhoods with the fastest speeds.

The postcodes with the slowest speeds were:

  1. BN13RN, in St. Peter's and North Laine, with an average speed of 0.5Mbps
  2. BN32TH, in Central Hove, average 0.6Mbps
  3. BN16RE, in Withdean, average 0.8Mbps
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The postcodes with the fastest speeds were:

  1. BN12FJ, in Regency, average 380.5Mbps
  2. BN20EP, in Queen's Park, average 267.5Mbps
  3. BN14NF, in St. Peter's and North Laine, average 209.6Mbps


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 2020.

In total, nearly 400,000 tests were done.

READ MORE: Fibre optic cable to link key sites in city after investment

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.”

He added: “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 Argus: Matt Warman is a former technology journalist Matt Warman is a former technology journalist

This week, the Government set out a draft strategy to connect 1 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% 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."