Broadband
Manor Farm House has fast, reliable broadband. As of May 2026, our connection delivers 32 Mbps down and 30.9 Mbps up with 23 ms latency — symmetric, low-latency speeds that comfortably handle Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, Cisco Webex, HD streaming on multiple devices, and the demands of running a business from home. It's not fibre, but in everyday use it performs better than many fibre connections, particularly on upload.
How we get it
The connection is wireless, supplied by a local provider whose dish on our chimney points to a base station at Britannia Barn, just off the A47 towards Great Yarmouth. The system was originally installed by Symmetris in November 2016 (now part of WiSpire/In Touch Systems, all under Redshelf). The dish, the line of sight, and the connection itself have been in continuous service since.
It is, by some margin, the right solution for this location. Fibre to the cabinet (FTTC) wouldn't help — the cabinet is over five kilometres from the house. Fibre to the premises (FTTP) is unlikely to ever reach somewhere this remote. 5G is a future possibility — the local mast wasn't far away last time we checked, but the equipment cost and the requirement for a router within five metres of the receiver made it impractical for now. The wireless connection bypasses all of that.
Wired networking throughout
The house is comprehensively wired with Cat 5e ethernet. Every room has at least one network point, and the sitting room has three (for the TV, DVD player, and surround sound system). The router sits alongside the main patch panel in the office, with a second patch panel in the utility room. Network points also reach the engine room and the hay barn — useful for anyone wanting reliable connectivity to the outbuildings for security cameras, workshop computers, or other equipment.
Four wireless access points — in the office, the living area, the utility room, and the engine room — provide strong, consistent WiFi coverage throughout the house and immediate surroundings. A PoE switch in the office also powers the camera inside the barn owl nest box, allowing us to monitor the breeding pair and their owlets each season.
A note on the BT copper line
When we moved here in 2005 we inherited a BT landline and copper-pair broadband — the cable runs 6.1 km across the marsh from the exchange, terminating in DP 101 on the front of the house. Speeds over that copper were under 1 Mbps and the cable was occasionally severed by the IDB diggers maintaining the dykes. We kept the line for some years as a fallback, but in 2022 we gave it up — the wireless connection had long since proven more reliable than the copper ever was. The house no longer needs a landline.
A short history
The path to current speeds wasn't direct. Before the WiSpire/Symmetris solution, we used:
BT Broadband (2005–2012) — abysmal speeds, intermittent cable cuts
In Touch Systems (December 2012 onwards) — line-of-sight radio, dish on the chimney to Caister water tower; an improvement but limited
Symmetris (November 2016) — the current dish and Britannia Barn base station, originally 30 Mbps synchronous
When Symmetris was acquired by WiSpire in 2021 there were some teething issues with the transition and pricing rose, but the underlying connection has remained solid.