The UK's broadband 'digital divide', defined as the gap between the fast internet haves and have-nots, is deeper than was thought and may be getting even deeper, newly published research has revealed.

According to a study from Point Topic, all the top 10 local authority areas with the highest broadband density are in London and the home counties.

The 10 with the lowest density are in the rural areas of Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, along with West Somerset which includes the wide open spaces of Exmoor.

Household density is highest in prosperous suburban areas, but business use drives the total up in areas like Westminster and Tower Hamlets. This explains the top 10 range from 25 broadband lines per 100 people in Wandsworth, South London, to 20 in South Buckinghamshire.

Low density areas include Dumfries and Galloway, with 6.3 lines per 100 down to Eilean Siar in the Western Isles with 4.9. The figures exclude one of the UK's smallest local authorities, the City of London, which has a very high density because of business use.

Based on detailed mapping of broadband density right down to the postcode level, the figures show density in terms of the number of broadband lines per 100 population as at mid-2005.

They include DSL lines provided over BT's network and cable modem connections supplied by cable TV networks.