The village of Beckwithshaw near Harrogate has the worst superfast broadband coverage in the whole of North Yorkshire.
House of Commons library data published recently reveals the village, alongside Menwith & Denton Moor, has superfast coverage of 66.4%, much lower than the UK average of 94.9%.
Superfast broadband is defined as a speed of between 30 Mbps and 300 Mbps.
Terri Micallef has run Rigg Farm Montessori Nursery in Beckwithshaw since 1994. She said she has faced years of poor broadband coverage which had a negative impact on her business.
She said:
“We use iPads for child observation and it was so slow and wasted so much time. It was so frustrating having to wait.”
In the end, she said she became so annoyed with poor speeds she ditched the broadband for a mobile internet router that has “worked really well.”
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The area of Beckwithshaw, Menwith, and Denton Moor has the second slowest average broadband speeds in the Skipton and Ripon constituency at 37.2 Mbps, which is to be expected considering it has the worst coverage in the county.
Pateley Bridge and Nidd Valley has the overall slowest speeds in the constituency at 36.4 Mbps.
In the Harrogate & Knaresborough constituency, Boroughbridge & Marton-Cum-Grafton has the slowest speeds at 46 Mbps. Saltergate has the quickest internet with a 94.1 Mbps average.
North Yorkshire County Council has responsibility for broadband in the county.
Robert Ling, assistant director for Technology and Change, said:
“We understand the importance of high-speed connectivity to businesses and residents. For that reason, North Yorkshire has been at the forefront of investment in broadband for some years, through the creation of high-speed connectivity provider NYnet and the Superfast North Yorkshire programme.
“We acknowledge that some areas are particularly difficult to reach for geographical and technical reasons, but we are working alongside communities and Building Digital UK to find innovative solutions.”