PARTS OF THE country experience broadband speeds up to 36 times slower than others.

The data, from independent price comparison website and switching service Switcher.ie, is based on almost 27,000 consumer speed tests run by broadband users between 1 August 2015 and 31 July 2016.

The slowest broadband area is Legan in Longford, with an average download speed of 1.98Mbps, while the fastest area is Drimnagh in Dublin 12, with an average of 72.15Mbps.

Unsurprisingly, Dublin has the fastest average broadband speed, at 44.85Mbps, while Longford is the slowest county, with an average broadband speed of 7.25Mbps.

Here’s a county by county breakdown of the broadband speeds across the country:

Highs and lows

While Longford comes out the with the slowest average speed – Leitrim, Roscommon, Monaghan and Mayo are also in the bottom five.

Out of the 20 slowest areas, four are in Cork, three are in Cavan, and there are two in Galway.

For a larger image of this graph, click here. 

In the highest speed list - Waterford, Kildare, Meath and Westmeath follow behind Dublin.

For a larger image of this table, click here. 

The National Broadband Plan sets out that broadband with speeds of at least 30Mbps should be available across Ireland. However, as it stands only 25% of tests had speeds of 30Mbps or more. The average speed across all speed tests taken was 23.75 Mbps.

Commenting on the data from Switcher.ie Ciaran Barrett, Head of Consumer Fixed at Vodafone Ireland, said:

The Switcher.ie data on broadband speeds across the country highlight the need for equality of access to high-speed fibre broadband no matter where consumers are located.

Switcher.ie found that aside from the type of connection you have and where you live, there are a number of other factors that can affect the speeds you can achieve, for example distance from the exchange, where the router is placed within your home and even the time of day you use the internet. Whether or not you’re connected directly to the router or using WiFi will also have an impact, as will the device you’re using.

All speed test data comes from broadband users who ran a grand total of 26,829 consumer speed tests during the 12-month period 1 August 2015 – 31 July 2016.