The majority of homes and businesses in Alnwick - 90% - are yet to sign up to new, superfast broadband according to figures from Openreach.
This is significantly lower than the average across Northumberland, where 41% of homes and businesses that are able to upgrade to ultrafast full fibre broadband have done so.
It follows a £1.2m local investment to make speeds of up to one gigabit per second (Gbps) available to the majority of the market town.
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Openreach is encouraging more people to learn about the new broadband, with the service now available to 4,000 homes and businesses and used by a range of service providers. The company say that full fibre is more reliable, has consistent speeds and has enough capacity to use multiple devices at once as well as being faster.
Coun Richard Wearmouth, the deputy leader of Northumberland County Council and portfolio holder for corporate services, wanted to encourage more residents to take up the offer.
He said: "I would urge anyone who has fibre broadband available in their area to talk to their supplier about the packages available and take full advantage of the fastest speeds. If you need advice to get online or need help with your digital skills the council has a range of useful resources to help you do so.
"It's fantastic that many homes and businesses in Alnwick can now benefit from the fastest broadband speeds available. Good connectivity is vital to our modern lives and can open up a whole host of benefits and opportunities for work and leisure purposes alike."
According to broadbandexposed.co.uk, just under 11% of homes in Alnwick have access to broadband with speeds of 1gbps or faster. In comparison, the vast majority of homes - 98.93% - get speeds of 30 megabitts per second. There are 1,000 megabitts in a gigabitt, meaning the ultrafast speeds are more than 33 times faster than the standard broadband.
The council's iNorthumberland project has already brought so-called "superfast" speeds to around 95% of the county. The council is now working towards the delivery of ultrafast fibre, bringing the 1 gbps speeds to more people across the county.
According to the council's figures, 27% of properties are already able to benefit. The team is also working with central Government who are funding Project Gigabit which aims to deliver widescale installation of Gigabit capable fibre broadband across the county.
Openreach engineers are also hard at work in Berwick where more than 2,000 households and businesses can already place an order for the new technology.
The company has also announced plans to build in nine other nearby communities including Alnmouth, Amble, Longframlington, Lynemouth, Red Row, Rothbury, Seahouses, Shilbottle and Ulgham.
Robert Thorburn, Openreach’s regional manager for Scotland and the North East, explained that residents had to sign up for the upgrades.
He said: “The important thing to remember is that upgrades don’t happen automatically. People need to contact, and place orders through, their broadband provider to take advantage.
“Our engineering build continues across the North East and we’re determined to deliver a great service to local residents, helping people to work from home easily and build connections and opportunities in their communities."
Once somebody places an order with a service provider, an Openreach engineer will visit on an agreed day. They’ll run a new fibre optical cable from underground or a nearby pole to a small junction box on the outside wall of the premises. A smaller cable goes through the outside wall to an inside unit - which needs to be near a double electricity socket. Before they leave, the engineer will test the connection to make sure it’s up and running.
Suzy Walker, founder of The Alnwick Story Fest and freelance journalist, lives and works in Alnwick and was full of praise for the town's new broadband.
She said: “As well being an amazing place to live Alnwick also has brilliant broadband, which has been of huge benefit throughout the process of organising the story fest.
“As someone who mainly works from home it’s vital that I have broadband which is just as good as in a city centre office. Whatever I need to do online – whether it’s video calls or social media lives - I can do it with no concerns that the broadband will let me down.”
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