In a previous post we were waiting for the second cabinet in Wreningham, by the School, to complete the installation and commissioning processes. This is now done. 29th September is when Superfast Broadband will be switched on at the cabinet and be available for the majority of village properties, not served by the Top Row cabinet. ISPs should now be offering these services to their subscribers to start from 29th of this month.

However, Better Broadband for Norfolk (BBfN) advise that a number of Wreningham properties, for historic installation reasons, will not have access to the Superfast Broadband. The technical rationale is beyond me, but, in simple terms, as advised to me:

  • Wreningham properties have copper telephone wiring over which they can access digital services.
  • Some, but not all, are linked directly to the telephone exchange by long runs of copper wiring.
  • Re-routing to the cabinet would need several 100 metres of additional copper wiring.
  • The increase in the wiring run would result in a digital service be even slower than before re-routing.

As yet there are no alternatives offered by Openreach under the current contract with the government and Norfolk CC. This situation has implications for the national roll-out of Superfast Broadband and is being taken up at county and national level by Norfolk CC, Liz Truss (MP) and Ofcom.

Don’t shoot the messenger! I’ll keep on at the BBfN people to see if there is a solution for those affected by this.

 


About Michael Hill

Wreningham Parish Council Chair

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