North Norfolk Getting there!! or is it

Hi there, Very curious about what people think about this does it always boil down to money? or are there other explanations?

There are (including mine) countless small businesses in this part of the world I, myself and family, have moved away from the hustle and bustle of the big smoke for a more peaceful slower life. Staring a new venture.

More and more people are starting their businesses and running them from home, contending with others in the house on their multiple devices watching Netflix, playing Roblox, watching videos on cooking or facebook, while a film downloads. This is one house on my street and can be 4 people at one time on the internet. So any predicted download speeds become a more realising half or a third of that or lower during peek times. Having access to over 300Mbps from Virgin is definitely missed.

I live in a small village between two exchanges, Roughton, Chapel Road NR11, which is connected to Hanworth (EAHWO). Now this is only until the last 5-10 years been able to get 20-40Mbps. But not that further away is Cromer - (EACRO), which has FTTP. (a quick speed test with only me in the house shows (36.5Mbps down and 7.3Mbps up).

Now, correct me if i am wrong, but I would suspect (as i saw workmen many years ago plating a cable from Norwich to Aylsham along the A140), that the cable infrastructure runs along a main road network from a larger central telephone exchange. I presume Norwich is a main one in North Norfolk and the cabelling then routes out "tree like" to the other towns and villages in this area.

So why, if there is FTTP at a point past my village, how come the exchange that i am on was not FTTP enabled also ?

Is there anyway of finding out when or if this exchange is going to be enabled for FTTP or H, i to believe, even with the GOV promises for better BB speeds in rural areas, that 5G will be here before any better BB options

Usually smaller local exchanges only handle your telephony and ADSL broadband.

Fibre services (both FTTC and FTTP) tend to come from larger more centralised exchanges.

So your copper line could run to your local exchange but the fibre feeding your local fibre cabinet goes in another direction to the largest local exchange.

The fact fibre runs down a road somewhere has zero bearing on where FTTP is available. It's just a link between 2 points and you can't just tap in to it.

Fibre branches out from these larger Fibre exchanges to kit called Aggregation Nodes.
It branches from these to Fibre cabinets or homes.

An exchange showing as having FTTP enabled doesn't mean everyone on that exchange has access to it. Far from it.

To be FTTP enabled OpenReach need to intentionally run it past your property with the purpose of customers ordering.

Cabling running past you doesn't make any difference to you getting FTTP. Otherwise all FTTP rollouts would start from the exchange and radiate outwards. In actuality Openreach will take many things into account to decide where is the best place to enable. Running an FTTP spine is relatively simple - it is the connection of all the end points that is more intensive and so a spine passing you isn't that big a part of the puzzle.

In the end Openreach are working off various models to decide where is the next place to do FTTP. We don't have access to those models (they would be commercially sensitive as Openreach are competing with other suppliers) and so can't tell what those decision points are.

Also, an exchange being enabled could potentially mean that 1 premises has FTTP (it is unlikely but it could). Pretty much no FTTP enabled exchange has all premises also FTTP enabled - some will be and some won't - even if your neighbour has FTTP it doesn't guarantee that you would.

Cromer 1.8% of premises can order FTTP, so somewhere saying exchange is enabled means very little

On your issue, look into why at peak times your speeds drop from the 36 Mbps to around the half you mention. Changing ISP might help, or finding out what everyone is doing, rather than saying they are doing or fixing wifi issues.

Have you checked on the Better Broadband For Norolk website? https://www.norfolk.gov.uk/what-we-do-and-how-we-wor...

if all the cables run to a BT exchange and BT or openreach or whoever, own those cables, why change supplier? apart from cost, its still running to the same green box then exchange??

There are many factors in determining one's speeds, the Openreach cables between you and the exchange being some of many. Changing ISPs can change backhaul from the exchange and also how and where your connection hits and interacts with the internet.

Unlikely to see FTTP via the BDUK project if they have superfast FTTC already

Same cables to the cabinet and fibre to the handover point, but from that handover point what each provider buys/does with regards to capacity can have an impact.

Remember the Internet for the whole world is not in your local exchange.

Remember the Internet for the whole world is not in your local exchange.

Indeed - it's in a box

Have you tried turning it off and on again?

the cable you may have seen being put in from Norwich to Aylsham a few years ago was actually Virgin Media to feed the new estates
PS my little bit of North Norfolk has FTTP and wonderful it is too 150 down instead of 3!!!

Norfolk is largely an enclave of Market A (ie BT-only) exchanges too, making it difficult for altnets to run leased lines and buy bandwidth as the prices on monopoly exchanges are sky high. While there's mediocre coverage of FTTC in larger villages and market towns, there are 2 problems:

1) quite a large number of people live in periphery of towns and villages and they're lucky to even get USO speeds.

2) Even if you have FTTC in Norfolk, there's a serious problem with capacity - the backhaul is all too easily overwhelmed and congested.

making it difficult for altnets to run leased lines and buy bandwidth as the prices on monopoly exchanges are sky high

If I am understanding you correctly I think you have this backwards.

The reason consumer wholesale prices are high on market A exchanges is to give altnets a better return on investment if they were to come to the area to install their own network. BT are not allowed to compete with them using their lower prices and so the altnet are not having to price as low to get customers. The prices are specifically high to allow altnets into the area not to block them.

The cost of leased lines and core bandwidth is nothing to do with market A.

Two points.

First, ian72 is correct. Ofcom classify exchanges as Market A because there is no LLU presence in them. Not the other way round. LLU means that such ISPs have installed their own MSAN/DSLAM in the exchange. Whether or not they do that is a commercial decision they make, unless of course the exchange is so small there is no space for that.

Second, I assume you mean BT Wholesale, which means a hundred or so ISPs can supply. Not just BT Retail and BT Business. Even Sky and TalkTalk could through BT Wholesale. They just choose not to.

AIUI there are a tiny few exchanges in the north of Scotland that only have BT ISP. They were paid to set them up, and did so on condition that they could have exclusive rights.