Help

Advice and FAQs

Checking progress

This website provides information about the areas of the county where we have been able to improve the availability of broadband services.

 Project 1 (completed) rollout table

 Project 2 (completed) rollout table

 Guide

Use these tables and the guide to identify how your property is connected through street cabinets and exchanges and to see what we are planning work in your area.
 Project 3Updates on progress and completion of build will be published through the news section on this site.
 Online address checkerUse this to find specific details about your property.

Getting the best from broadband

 

 Upgrading to fibre broadband 
 Getting the best from broadband 
 Carrying out a speed test 
 Selecting an ISP 
 Checking superfast availability 
 How to avoid falling victim to online scams 
 The Universal Service Commitment 

FAQs

There is a new cabinet near my house and it is live but broadband speeds have not improved.  Why?

Connection is not automatic and you will need to contact your Internet Service Provider (ISP) to discuss switching to a fibre package.

I thought that your first project was going to give 100% superfast coverage?

From the outset, the County Council’s intention was to provide a greatly improved broadband service to as many premises in the County as possible throughout the life of the eSussex Project within the technical, engineering and financial constraints applicable.  Whilst at the completion of Contract 1 full rollout was not achieved, the ambition remains.  ESCC has therefore put in place two further contracts to get as close to 100% superfast coverage as possible. 

Don’t I have a right to broadband?

Under current UK regulation, no individual, business or property is entitled to a broadband connection and, as such, no provider is obligated to provide one.  However, in order to ensure that Britain’s telecoms infrastructure is fit for the future and will continue to deliver the connectivity that consumers need in the digital age, universal high speed broadband is to be delivered by a regulatory Universal Service Obligation (USO), the government confirmed in December 2017.  The decision means that everyone in Britain will have the legal right to request minimum speeds of 10Mbps by 2020 regardless of where they live or work.  See our factsheet on this.

Why can’t the project be delivered faster?

This is a very and complex large infrastructure project delivering in areas where there are very real technical and geographic challenges, and simply takes time to deliver.  The Contract 1 project build alone involved laying over 1,000 km of fibre optic cable, installing well over 5,000 distribution points and more than 1.4million hours of construction time.

East Sussex County Council has appointed BT to help install faster broadband across the county. Does this mean I will have to buy my improved broadband service from BT?

No, this project is buying infrastructure which will be made available to broadband retailers (e.g. Talktalk, Sky, Plusnet) to offer their services to customers. You can buy your broadband service from a large number of providers. See https://www.homeandbusiness.openreach.co.uk/fibre-broadband/superfast-broadband/superfast-fibre-buy-it-now.

How much will fibre broadband cost?

That's a bit like asking how much a car will cost!  It depends what you want to buy and what sort of deal you can get.  There will be a choice of Internet Service Providers (ISPs) who will compete for your business with competitive broadband packages. You can look at current TV adverts or price comparison websites to get an indication of costs, including packages – see our factsheet on finding an Internet Service Provider (ISP).

Why can’t you give an exact date for my cabinet or other fibre structure to go live?

It is impossible to give a specific date because of the engineering complexities of deploying fibre broadband cabinets and fibre-to-the-premises.  Not only is the provision of fibre involved, but availability of power connections, granting of wayleaves in some cases, road closures, traffic management permissions and space within the duct network to make the necessary connections plus many other considerations such as weather.

A telephone engineer said that the local copper network needs upgrading.  Can you help?

Sometimes local copper networks were installed many years ago and were not intended for data transmission.  Unfortunately this is outside the remit of the e-Sussex project.  Our role is to install the fibre and new structures, then the network is handed over to Openreach who run it and sell services on to the Internet Service Providers (ISPs).  The only option you have to get your copper network upgraded is to refer back to your ISP, who will then contact Openreach.  Openreach sells a wholesale service to the ISPs, so doesn’t deal direct with end users.  If your ISP is unable (or unwilling) to help, then we suggest that you contact Ofcom who are the regulators for the industry.

What about new house build?

Openreach has information to help developers, house-builders and architects build an Openreach network on residential or commercial developments.  See: Openreach property development.  Legislation is now in place that requires gigabit capable broadband infrastructure to be installed in new build developments.

 

What other broadband works are being done in East Sussex?

Broadband infrastructure works are being undertaken in East Sussex by a number of other companies as part of their own commercial programmes. These are not contracted through the County Council and any queries should be direct to them.  They include, in alphabetical order:

Box Broadband               https://www.boxbroadband.co.uk

Cityfibre                           https://www.cityfibre.com

Lightning Fibre                https://www.lightningfibre.co.uk

Swish Fibre                     https://www.swishfibre.com/                   

Trooli                               https://www.trooli.com

Virgin Media                    https://www.virginmedia.com