Broadband in Armagh City, Banbridge and Craigavon

Coverage figures point one way. 96.5% of postcodes can take superfast speeds of 30 Mbps or better, in line with the national norm of roughly 97 per cent, while the 88% gigabit figure means seven postcodes in eight can go far beyond that. Below 10 Mbps sits 0.9% of postcodes, under one in a hundred. The outward codes in the data run from BT25, BT31 and BT32 through to BT66, BT67 and BT71. None of the headline numbers suggests a borough being left behind. Households here mostly face a shopping decision rather than an availability problem. Gigabit tiers are open to most, superfast to nearly all, and genuinely poor connections are confined to a small residue of postcodes that the averages barely register.

A near-90 per cent gigabit footprint changes how households should shop. Speed ceilings stop being the constraint for most of the borough, so contract price and length become the levers that matter. The 0.9% of postcodes below 10 Mbps deserve the opposite advice. For those few locations availability drives everything, and any faster option that appears is worth serious attention.