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It is the only place where penetration has exceeded 50 per cent, although Wokingham, a short hop along the M4, comes close with 49.3 per cent.

Wycombe, Milton Keynes and Watford come next in a top 10 that, Swindon and West Wiltshire aside, is dominated by the south east.

Point Topic, which conducted the research, explained that Swindon comes top because it has a relatively

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high proportion of young families with children, which lead in broadband take-up, and most important of all, it is covered by both BT and the ntl:Telewest cable network. Total broadband take-up is much higher where the two networks are competing.

Outside the south east and the M4 corridor, broadband take-up is concentrated in the major metropolitan areas.

There are over 50 local authority districts where fewer than one in four homes have broadband. Most of them are in the more rural areas, particularly in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales (see Point Topic's map of Broadband Take-up by household, but they also include some urban centres, such as Dundee, Carlisle and Merthyr Tydfil. These suffer from the opposite factors to Swindon, notably the lack of a cable option in Carlisle and Merthyr Tydfil.