Broadband in Lisburn and Castlereagh

Few gaps separate basic and headline coverage here. At 99.3%, superfast availability sits a couple of points above the UK average of roughly 97 per cent, and the share of coverage below 10 Mbps is close to zero at 0.1%. Slow broadband, on this evidence, has effectively disappeared from the area.

The gigabit layer is nearly as broad. Cable network coverage takes gigabit-capable speeds to 94.4% of premises, spanning districts from BT8 to BT67 and including BT16, BT17, BT18 and BT66. The remaining 5.6% without a gigabit option are the only group facing a real availability question, and for them the answer changes postcode by postcode. Everyone else is choosing between speed tiers rather than hunting for coverage, which is a comfortable position for any area to be in.

For a household moving within the area, these figures mean broadband can safely sit near the bottom of the checklist. Whichever of the 15 districts a property falls in, a fast service is close to guaranteed and a gigabit-capable one is highly likely. The more useful comparison is between deals, since availability this broad tends to widen the range of packages an address can take.