Connected London FAQs

Here are the fixed line broadband options that might be available where you live:

Standard Broadband - Delivered through existing copper wiring connected to your property via a green cabinet on the street.

• Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL) - Maximum speeds of 8Mb/s
• ADSL 2+ - Maximum speeds of approx 24Mb/s

Superfast - Delivered through existing copper wiring connected to your property via a green cabinet on the street.

• Fibre to the Cabinet (FTTC) - Maximum speeds of 40/10Mb/s
• FTTC 2 - Maximum speeds of 80/20Mb/s

Ultrafast - Delivered through hybrid copper wiring connected to your property via a green cabinet on the street.

• G.fast - Maximum speeds of 300Mb/s
• Docsis - Maximum speeds of 300Mb/s

Fibre to the Premise (FTTP) - Delivered through fibre cables which need to be installed at your property via a green cabinet on the street.

• Capable of delivering speeds greater than 300Mb/s
  

Broadband can be slow for a number of reasons.

1. No availability of hybrid copper services such as FTTC or DOCSIS, and full fibre services
2. Having a copper service which is far away from the green cabinet
3. Too much bandwidth being used by multiple devices slows down speeds
4. Not signing up for a broadband service more akin to your requirements
5. WIFI router fault

Often, the best way to establish what services you can receive is to contact the providers directly. Using data from Ofcom, we have created a Connected London map which shows approximate information about what services are available across London.

These Internet service providers own infrastructure across London and may be able to provide you with broadband in your area:

• BT
• Colt
• Community Fibre
• G.Network
• Hyperoptic
• Luminet
• M24Seven
• Optimity
• Relish
• TalkTalk
• Virgin

If you are a fibre infrastructure provider in London and would be added to this list, email [email protected]

Theres a number of options available if your existing provisions aren't adequate.

1. Check with providers what services are available
2. Utilising any government schemes which subside the installation costs of new fibre services. e.g. Gigabit Voucher Scheme
3. Community Fibre Partnership - pooling together with other residents and businesses to show market desire and paying a portion of the installation costs to Openreach.

Mobile phones contain antennas in order to give or receive signals. Older generations of phones had external antennas while new/modern mobiles have small compact internal antennas.

Most modern mobile phones will have multiple antennas for additional services such as SMS & MMS for text messaging, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS etc.

When you make or receive a call on a mobile phone, your voice gets converted into radio waves that a near-by base station picks up. The base stations are usually arranged in hexagonal patterns, with an antenna in the centre. They overlap at the edges to enable users are always in range of a station and experience a smooth connection during the duration of the call. That antenna will then relay that signal to another antenna closer to the recipient of the call.

Which is why if you happen to be on a call while moving around you don’t lose connection as the signal will keep jumping to whichever antenna is closest to you.

The ‘G’ in 5G stands for Generation. 5G is the next generation of wireless technologies.

Each generation uses a different band of spectrum. 5G will require a spectrum of different frequencies to suit different purposes.

• Low frequency, to enable wider coverage
• Mid frequency, enable higher speeds
• High frequency, to provide ultra-high capacity but with small coverage ranges.

5G is being rolled out across the UK by different mobile providers. You will have to check with individual providers to see if they have plans to rollout 5G near you.

Use provider checkers to see their rollout plans:

• Three
• O2
• EE
• Vodafone

Public Health England (PHE) which advises the Government on all aspects of public health, including exposure to radio waves, the appropriate standards of protection for the general population and any measures necessary to protect sensitive groups. PHE also advises the Mayor on these matters.

Public Health England’s guidance is available online.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has funded national and global assessments of the status of pollinators and the factors driving changes in their populations. These assessments do not identify 5G or electromagnetic radiation as a driver. In January 2019, Defra published a review of what is known, and not known, about the status, values, drivers of change and responses to management of UK insect pollinators, which is available at the following link.