Deeside is One of Wales’ Best Places for Internet Penetration

The UK government frequently updates its national and region map showing internet penetration across the isles. This is ranked by how many homes in the region can access gigabit availability, and they also track download speeds too. Numbers gathered for January 2024 and May 2023 show that Deeside is one of Wales’ best places to access working internet.

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Internet in the UK

More generally, the governments of both Wales and Britain as a whole are concerned about internet penetration. In an increasingly digital world, those who can’t access hardware or live in an area with poor internet risk falling behind. That’s why several national schemes are happening right now, to address just that.

The internet is vital for a lot of working roles now, not to mention its stranglehold on entertainment. For example, every streaming service requires an internet connection, as does every retail site, and those from digital services like iGaming. Without the internet, you wouldn’t be able to stream movies, find the best UK slots or even read this article. Fortunately, the internet is everywhere nowadays, but its quality does differ depending on where you are and the local infrastructure installed.

Per the government’s statistics page, 78.5 % of the UK crosses the one-gigabit threshold for acceptable internet. The average download speed figures, which are older after being recorded in May 2023, show a national average of 151.3 megabits per second (Mbps). The average download speed has likely increased slightly and will be updated when new figures become available.

Internet in Deeside

In Wales, there are noticeable regional groups that have better internet than the rest of the area. For example, the South has the best internet around Cardiff, Bridgend and Swansea. That’s no surprise, given the heavy industrialisation of those areas. The north mirrors this, with better figures crowded around Wrexham and the River Dee estuary. As a rule, the more rural areas tend to have worse internet than those that attract a lot of industry.

That brings us to the internet in Deeside. 86.8% of the Alyn and Deeside constituency has access to one-gigabit internet, while average download speeds are also quite high for the area at 137.2 Mbps.

For context, this is similar but higher than these nearby Welsh constituencies:

• Wrexham – 71.5% – 130.8 Mbps
• Delyn – 69.4% – 125.2 Mbps
• Vale of Clwyd – 77.9% – 130.4 Mbps

The nearby City of Chester in England has a much lower gigabit availability at 54.2% with a download speed of just 97.4 Mbps. To the north of that, the Wirral Peninsula and Merseyside support some of the best internet stats for the whole of Britain. As an industrial hub that serves all of the above regions, there’s no doubt that this contributes to Deeside’s boosted internet penetration statistics.

Deeside is also toe to toe with some of South Wales’ most industialised population centres. Cardiff, which comprises four constituencies, averages 88% gigabit availability across the whole city with better download speeds at 185 Mbps. To the west, Swansea leads Wales with 93.1% in Swansea East and 91.4% in Swansea West, with slightly lower download speeds at 180 Mbps. Unsurprisingly, the worst constituency in Wales is the very rural Brecon and Radnorshire constituency at just 27.4% gigabit availability and 75.5 Mbps.