Bradford only UK city in global top 100 for broadband

Bradford has the highest average broadband speed in the UK at 6.03Mbit/s, placing it 99th fastest in the world, but is the only British city to make the top 100, according to web content firm Akamai.

The firm's State of the Internet report found that the UK's average broadband speed rose to just 4.3Mbit/s in the fourth quarter of 2010 to reach 26th in the global rankings as its position in the world broadband league tables continues to stagnate.

David Belson, Akamai's director of market intelligence, explained to V3.co.uk that there was no anomaly that had pushed Bradford up the table to 99th, noting that around 60 per cent of inhabitants have individual IP addresses in the region.

"Sometimes a city can jump up if there's an aggregation point in the area where networks meet, but that doesn't appear to be the case in Bradford so it seems reasonable to conclude that it's just that the broadband there is particularly good," he said.

Belson also said that several other cities such as Southampton, Luton and Oldham are just below the top 100 with reasonably fast average speeds, but that London languishes in the 400s with an average speed of 3.5Mbit/s.

The scores are based on averages of all connection speeds, and it seems possible that new superfast services from Virgin and BT are driving up the average in smaller cities, while larger locations like London are dragged down by the prevalence of older networks.

Nevertheless, the low speeds in the capital will make grim reading for those in government hoping to turn areas such as London's Silicon Roundabout into a hub for startups and established technology vendors.

South Korea continues to dominate the global internet league table with the top 11 spots taken up by its cities. Taegu held on to the coveted number one spot with an average connection speed of 18.36Mbit/s.

In fact, the entire top 55 is dominated by south east Asian countries South Korea, Japan and Hong Kong. Constanta in Romania is the first European city to appear with an average speed of 8.23Mbit/s.