Broadband in Leeds
Leeds is widely regarded as the cultural, commercials and financial centre of West Yorkshire’s urbanised areas. It has a history of production dating back to the 17th century, and is now one of the UK’s largest financial centres.
With the city’s key sectors seeing such a transformation, the issue of faster broadband has seen plenty of attention, as it is an integral part of a modern city looking to innovate and keep pace.
Superfast fibre broadband
Leeds has taken to implementing fast broadband as result of its rise within banking and insurance. The infrastructure has improved significantly, so those living and working around the city centre can see the benefits of fibre-optic broadband.
It is one of the UK’s largest cities, so you could expect a lot of variation for broadband coverage, but the city impresses with superfast broadband available in a huge number of postcodes.
ADSL is also an option, which offers slower speeds for extremely low prices, and if you are not in a street with fibre-optic then this would be your next best option.
Speeds and availability
The excellent fibre-optic coverage is evident with some of the packages available at different postcodes, and the range of providers offering a superfast service. LS6, immediately north-west of the city centre, and the neighbouring LS5, have fibre broadband deals which can get your download speeds up to around 30Mb.
If you do choose fibre, then you will usually find that as long as you are connected by your Ethernet cable, you will be closer to the advertised maximum. Wi-Fi can cause a drop because other people nearby could be using the same WiFi channel on your Wi-Fi hub at home.
Moving away from the centre doesn’t seem to have too much of an effect on availability; a number of LS18 locations, for example, still offer the same packages as LS6. The vast majority of these broadband deals offer unlimited usage as well, so you don’t have to worry about how much downloading and web browsing you do each month.
If you’re looking for something cheaper, and not really interested in fibre, then you can choose an ADSL service instead, and you’ll probably see broadband speed of between 5 and 15Mb on average.
Broadband providers
You’ll see broadband deals from Virgin Media across the city, with the provider having its own dedicated network alongside a range of very fast broadband packages. Other fibre options come from BT, Sky, TalkTalk, SSE and Plusnet. They can’t match Virgin Media for maximum speed, but there are some good deals on offer.
Direct Save is a lesser-known alternative offering fibre in some areas, and it’s worth factoring in line rental as well, as this is usually listed separately from the package price by most providers.
If you want ADSL then Virgin Media is not an option as it exclusively uses fibre, but the other providers do offer it, and usually refer to it as just ‘broadband’.
Summary
It comes as no surprise that a city like Leeds is well-connected for broadband; it is a key player in the financial, banking and insurance industries, and has made great strides to ensure excellent, consistent coverage. The fibre-optic providers offer superfast packages in a wide range of locations, benefiting both residents and business customers.
