Welsh village named as having the slowest internet in the UK

A small village In Wales has earned itself the dubious honour of having the slowest internet in the UK.

Llys Tripp, which is near Cardiff, can only muster speeds of 1-3Mbps. However, it is generally far worse than this, with data from the last year showing an average of 0.34Mbps.

For reference, this is 2,500 times slower than the fastest internet speeds in Wales. These can be found in Haul Fryn, Swansea with residents regularly able to enjoy space-age connections of 882Mbps. 

For the unfortunate residents of Llys Tripp however, dreams of even double-digit speeds are a distant reality. Downloading a standard quality film can take upwards of 70 minutes. If you wanted to stream the same film in high-quality, it would take you 17 hours to get through it due to buffering. 

There had been promises that the glacial connection would be upgraded. The local community came up with the necessary funding and the infrastructure was to be provided by Openreach, with Community Fibre stepping in as the ISP.

Much to the dismay of locals, this project was recently put on hold. Naturally, this has caused some irritation for the village's long-suffering residents. Speaking with the Daily Post, local resident Stuart Marsh explained his frustrations.

"I had been chasing Community Fibre all through December, but they were very quiet, I just didn't hear anything from them. I’d been chasing them on a few things and had heard nothing back where previously, they were quite informative,” said Mr Marsh.

"Eventually, we received a message to say that all Community Fibre projects are on hold. We had secured the necessary funding but were told just after Christmas that all projects are on hold.”

While average speeds of under 1Mbps might seem unfathomable, this coverage blackspot represents a significant minority of Brits. This is because rural areas are disproportionately expensive to connect.

As the number of potential customers is so much lower, private companies are less likely to want to venture out, focusing instead on high-density, often urban areas.

The government has put numerous funding into providing wide-reaching, high-speed internet across the UK. Its initial plans were to have Nationwide coverage by the year 2025. However, this was revised down to 85% back in 2020 as the scale of the project became apparent.

Unfortunately for residents of areas like Llys Tripp, much of this still relies on private investment, with the possibility of low-speed internet for years to come a real possibility.