Broadband ADSL Internet Access in Norfolk

To the residents and businesses of Norfolk.

On the 26th February 2002 BT dropped the wholesale (the price ISP's pay) price of ADSL to 14.75 excluding VAT, this now gives ISP's the opportunity to charge ADSL prices that will appeal to the mass market. However to be able to receive ADSL you need to live within 5.5km of your local telephone exchange and for that exchange to have been upgraded to accept ADSL. The first item is not a problem as most people do live within that distance. The problem lies in the exchange having been upgraded, at the time of writing only 6 exchanges in Norfolk have been upgraded (Kings Lynn, Middleton, Thetford, Norwich, Norwich West and Norwich North) this leaves many people in Norfolk unable to purchase ADSL even if they wanted to. Signing this petition will alert BT to the potential demand in Norfolk for ADSL and allow them to upgrade Norfolks telephone exchanges. Also local government and businesses will be alerted to the potential and hopefully join funding the ADSL rollout in Norfolk.

What is ADSL?

For those that don't know or are unsure to what ADSL is, ADSL is a broadband Internet connection. Your ordinary phone line is converted to be able to receive high-speed Internet data. You can also use your phone to call people while connected to the Internet and you dont have to wait while your computer connects to the Internet as ADSL connects instantly. At the moment BT's home ADSL speeds are set at over 10 times faster than a normal dial-up connection and BT's Business speeds range from 10 to 40 times faster than a standard dial-up connection. This allows for high quality video and music to be sent instantly to your PC, emails to be sent and received instantly and no waiting for web pages to load. Broadband has been shown to be help childrens learning so many schools would benefit from ADSL being available. Businesss have also shown interest in being able to buy ADSL connections if they where available to them. Even the government has shown its support for broadband access.