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BT will roll out its super-fast service to two thirds of the UK....but Norfolk residents and businesses are still unlikely to benefit

BT announced in May that it will expand its roll-out of next-generation broadband to bring super-fast services to two-thirds of the UK.

Originally its fibre services, offering speeds of up to 40Mbps, were due to reach around 40% of the population by 2012.

A £1bn investment will see the project roll out to a further 20% of the population by 2015.

The first four million people will be connected by the end of 2010.

Of the 66% of the population who will have access to the fibre network, one quarter will have fibre to the home.

Norfolk has yet to feature in BT's rollout of next-generation broadband and the map below demonstrates that there are no exchanges in Norfolk enabled to deliver Fibre To The Cabinet, let alone Fibre To The Home (FTTC).

The lack of infrastructure can be attributed to the rurality of the county. Telecom providers and internet service providers (ISPs) can not justify the costs associated with laying fibre to small rural populations which means there is no demand on BT to upgrade their exchanges. 

This picture demonstrates the disadvantaged position of Norfolk which is why we are lobbying BT to enable exchanges in Norfolk in addition to lobbying Jeremy Hunt, Secretary of State for Culture, to carry out a rural broadband project in Norfolk. Details can be found in the Jeremy Hunt feature of the newsletter.