Broadband
When we moved here in 2005 we had a BT landline and soon got BT Broadband. The copper pair that provides these services terminated in DP 101 on the front of the house. To get there a multipair cable winds its way across 3.3Km of marsh and dykes to a pole run near Wickhampton Church.
From there it is a further 2.2Km to the cabinet (PCP – Primary Connection Point). That PCP is 0.6 Km from the exchange. A total run of some 6.1Km. Unsurprisingly broadband over that copper twisted pair was abysmal. We got less than 1 Mb up and down making the internet virtually unusable. Especially as my business relies on the internet.
An added issues was that the 360 digger drivers from the Broads Inland drainage board (https://www.wlma.org.uk/broads-idb/history/), who routinely keep the dykes clear, occasionally cut through the cable. That is always exciting as first we must convince BT that there is a disconnection. Then we have to help the engineers who turn out by showing them where the cable is and, sometimes, driving them across the marsh to the disconnection. In one particular incident Julie and I carried a 16 ft scaffold pole to where the break was so that when reinstating BT could put the cable through the scaffold pole across the dyke.
The solution
We looked at WiSpire for a radio internet connection. They were putting receiver aerials on church towers to serve the rural community. Since then it has got to be a big thing and many church spires sprout so many aerials they look like communication masts. But in 2012 there was not a church spire in line of sight from which they could provide service.
In December 2012 we found In Touch Systems (https://www.intouchsystems.co.uk/) who were able to provide a line of sight radio broadband — their ITSWISP Wireless Broadband — for £60 per month. They installed a device on our chimney next to the TV aerial to communicate with their equipment on Caister water tower. I can’t now remember the speed of their service or whether it was bandwidth limited or not. Their service wasn’t very good but so much better than BT Broadband. At the time there was no alternative.
We kept using their system until October 2016 when a friend in Stokesby told us about Symmetris (https://www.symmetris.co.uk/). They were very helpful and in November 2016 removed the in Touch system device and installed a dish on our chimney to point to their equipment on Britannia Barn, just of the A47 towards Great Yarmouth. They provided fixed IP and 30 MB synchronous unlimited bandwidth for just over £70 per month. Expensive, but at last we had a faster internet connection which was moderately reliable.
Unfortunately, in 2021 they sold out to…. WiSpire (https://www.wispire.co.uk/) and the associated In Touch systems (https://www.intouchsystems.co.uk/), so we were back were we started. Service and reliability has taken a dive although we do seem to be getting 40 MBPS on occasion. But prices have been increased. From 2016 to 2022 the monthly cost was unchanged. After a year as WiSpire/In Touch Systems they increased prices and limited my bandwidth. Their customer service is still not very good.
In Touch Systems, WiSpire, and Symmetris are all part of Redshelf. So, there is no real choice or competition — they appear to have a monopoly of radio broadband locally.
It seems unlikely in the extreme that BT will provide fibre to the premise (FTTP) to Manor Farm House and fibre to the cabinet (FTTC) won’t help much as the cabinet supplying our service is 5.5 km away.
Our only real excuse for keeping the land line and the BT broadband (as a fallback) was that BT would have to continue to provide service in the event of the likely issues with the cable across the marsh. However, we eventually decided that it was no worth the £300+ per year and in 2022 we gave up the land line and copper pair broadband to rely only on cell phones and radio broadband.
In the long term we hope that 5g broadband will reach us. It is still unavailable at time of writing (2025). When it does come it should be cheaper and faster.