Broadband in Edinburgh

Broadband in Edinburgh

A culturally vibrant and beautiful city, Edinburgh has become a tourism hotspot for many reasons, and it’s also thriving in terms of technology.

You might visit for the fantastic Edinburgh Festival Fringe, or take a trip there to see the stunning medieval architecture of Old Town, but the forward-thinking nature of the city is something that has seen less coverage.

It is enjoying a technological revolution, with small businesses setting up camp and enjoying success, and this means broadband connectivity is essential, and it’s improving. 

Aberdeen fibre-optic & ADSL broadband

Fibre-optic broadband is still in the process of rolling out across the city, but it is available in a number of locations.

Edinburgh’s ADSL broadband impresses; across the UK the service is well-known for its slow downloads speeds when compared to fibre, but Edinburgh has averaged around 10Mb when you exclude superfast connections.

If you’re getting broadband in Edinburgh, even without a superfast connection, you could still be looking at something reliable and reasonably quick.  10Mb would frustrate some, but it’s still better than 2Mb!

Speeds and availability

EH4, which covers the city’s north-west area, has seen some of the fastest averages, with close to 30Mb reported.  EH10, south of Old Town, has similar averages, alongside EH16 and EH7.

It is entirely dependent on whether your street has fibre cabling from Virgin Media or BT.  If you have ADSL then you could see speeds drop down at certain times of the day to as low as 5Mb.

ADSL is a slave to external factors, especially local traffic, so if you are not in a fibre-connected area, and it is congested for broadband anyway, then you can expect peak times to have a significant effect on download speeds.

Broadband providers

Virgin Media dominates when it comes to the better broadband results, with a number of Edinburgh postcodes seeing their fastest speeds coming from the renowned superfast provider.  Virgin Media does offer the fastest packages from the most well-known providers, and as it has its own fibre network it can offer quicker and quicker download speeds.  Another fibre provider in the city is Fuel Broadband, which has seen fast results, and some central postcodes will offer Sky, BT, SSE and TalkTalk fibre services.

For ADSL across the city, there are a number of providers offering a reliable connection.  Plusnet, EE and Direct Save all have low-cost packages worth a look.

Summary

Edinburgh has some excellent options for broadband, and even if you take ADSL because your street has no fibre-optic network, you can still expect a reliable connection.  However, if you can get fibre then you’ll be able to enjoy fast, consistent download speeds, with the added bonus of being in one of the most beautiful, welcoming cities in the world!