Broadband in Bolton

Consistency is the theme in Bolton. Full fibre coverage of 85.9% of postcodes clears the UK average of around 69 per cent of premises passed by a wide margin, and the district's listed extremes barely diverge. M46 tops the table at close to nineteen in twenty postcodes, while M26, the weakest code in the data, still manages more than eight in ten. That gap of around eleven points is narrow. Superfast availability runs at 97.5%, marginally above the national norm of about 97 per cent, and gigabit-capable services reach 89.6% of postcodes. The slow tail has almost gone, at 0.5% of the 7,070 postcodes. Whichever of the 12 outward codes an address falls in, the realistic expectation is a fibre option, with gigabit speeds available at most addresses on top.

Households comparing Bolton addresses can afford to be relaxed about connectivity. With 0.5% of postcodes below 10 Mbps and fibre coverage high in every code the data names, the difference between two streets is more likely to be price than capability. Home workers who depend on fast uploads will find fibre-grade services at the large majority of addresses, and even the district's weakest listed code, M26, keeps fibre coverage above eight in ten postcodes.