Rural Broadband Pilot
Hilgay and West Dereham villages in West Norfolk are set to be the first to trial broadband sent wirelessly from schools.
Residents within a 450m radius of the two schools will be able to receive broadband wirelessly with speeds up to 10Mbps with the potential to reach up to 100Mbps as demand arises.
If the pilot is successful then the scheme would be rolled out in two phases.
Under Phase One of this proposal around 105 locations, called Points of Presence (POPs), could be created across Norfolk. The locations selected are ones not covered by BT Local Loop Unbundled Exchanges, meaning BT is the only provider of broadband for that area, minimising competition issues. This will make Next Generation Access (NGA) broadband available to a potential 21,000 properties, a huge number of whom currently have no provision whatsoever.
Phase 2 will cover communities who are not within a 450 metre radius of a Next Generation Broadband Network (NGBN) site where one of the following two solutions would need to be implemented. For cluster shaped communities a "repeater" would need to be installed at the centre of the remote community. This location can be up to 15 kilometres from an NGBN site, providing the remote locality with the same service as the location served directly from a NGBN site. There would therefore be a further 210 POPs across Norfolk providing NGA broadband to potentially a further 42,000 properties.
Finally for linear villages or very remote locations such as farms, a low cost line of sight solution from the nearest suitable NGBN site would need to be provided. This will work over distances up to 15kms and offer a low cost solution, which is ideally suited to Norfolk’s topography.
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