Experts reveal the districts in UK cities with the fastest and slowest ... trends now

We've all been there — tearing our hair out because the broadband is running slowly or has dropped out all together.

But wouldn't it be more maddening if we knew that someone just down the road had double the internet speed or better?

Well that is exactly what it's like in certain cities across the UK, including Glasgow, Nottingham, Cardiff, London and Newcastle.

The most unequal place is Glasgow, according to research by the comparison and switching service Uswitch.com, which analysed 16,500 consumer speed tests across Britain.

The highest average download speed measured in the Scottish city was 840.4Mbps, logged in the Milton district.

However, just four miles away in the suburb of Bearsden speeds are as low as 0.97Mbps. 

This is less than a tenth of the 10Mbps download speed defined as the minimum required for a decent broadband connection as part of the UK Government’s universal service obligation.

Nottingham has the next biggest broadband divide, with its top recorded speed 689 times faster than its slowest 1.16Mbps connection. 

The average UK home broadband download speed is currently 59.4Mbps. 

Among the worst performing five cities, all areas apart from Newcastle had far faster broadband packages available than where the slowest speeds were recorded, Uswitch.com said.

To put the slow broadband into context, Glaswegians in the city's worst performing areas would have to wait 11 hours 54 minutes to download a two-hour movie in HD. 

In comparison, it would take only 49 seconds using the city's quickest connection.

Edinburgh had the fastest recorded speed of all UK cities with 840.6Mbps, found in the Forth ward in the north, followed by Glasgow and Nottingham.

Bradford had the smallest broadband speed divide, with a gap of 129Mbps between its fastest and slowest areas. 

Portsmouth and Wolverhampton were close behind, while Hull, which has the majority of its broadband supplied by regional provider KCOM, had the highest minimum speed of 14.2Mbps.

The shortest distance between a city's fastest and slowest areas was in Brighton. 

Just 1.2 miles separated an address in the Patcham area where the 419.5Mbps top speed was measured, from the bottom speed of 4.4Mbps recorded a short walk away in the Preston Park ward.

Uswitch.com said the broadband gap between UK households was widening because of the availability of faster services, with some customers upgrading and other not.