Full fibre in Norfolk: can your business get it yet?

Full fibre in Norfolk has spread fast, but it's still patchy. Plenty of business owners know someone a few streets away who's on it, while their own office is still on the old copper line. Here's how much of the county can get it, what's happened to the government's Project Gigabit, how to check your own address and what to do if it isn't there yet.

The short answer

• About 77% of Norfolk premises can order full fibre, against about 86% across England, as of October 2026 (thinkbroadband).
• Around 81% can get gigabit speeds of some kind once Virgin Media's cable network is counted.
• Project Gigabit in Norfolk was cut back in May 2026, from about 62,200 premises to about 33,000. Some of the rest is expected to go to a new contract.
• Check your exact address, not your postcode or your neighbour's. Results can differ from one building to the next.
• If you can't get it, a leased line, Starlink or a 4G/5G router can fill the gap, and full fibre doesn't arrive by itself: you have to order it.

Full fibre in Norfolk: the figures

thinkbroadband keeps an independent count of what's available, updated weekly and covering homes and businesses together. These are the Norfolk figures as of October 2026, out of about 478,000 premises:

The Openreach and "other networks" rows add up to more than the total because some streets have both. That's good news if you're one of them: you can shop around.

thinkbroadband also estimates, from the government's latest survey of build plans (May 2026), that gigabit coverage in Norfolk could rise by about another 2.7 points by May 2029. In other words, most of the remaining gap won't close quickly by itself.

FTTC or FTTP: what's the difference?

A lot of broadband is sold as "fibre" when it's only partly fibre. There are two kinds you'll come across.

FTTC (fibre to the cabinet) runs fibre to the green street cabinet, then uses the old copper phone wire for the last stretch to your building. The further you are from the cabinet, the slower it gets, and upload speeds are low.

FTTP (fibre to the premises), or full fibre, runs fibre all the way into your building. Speed doesn't drop with distance and uploads are much faster.

If your connection struggles with video calls, cloud backups or sending large files, the upload side is usually the reason, and full fibre is the fix.

Why can the other side of the road get it and we can't?

It's rarely a mistake. Full fibre is built in stages, from a particular pole, chamber or length of duct at a time. Two buildings facing each other can be fed from different routes, and one gets done months before the other.

There's also more than one network. Openreach builds to its own plan, other full fibre companies build to theirs, and publicly funded schemes fill in the places neither plans to reach. So your neighbour might be on a network that simply hasn't come down your side of the street.

Business units can add another wrinkle. Industrial estates, converted farm buildings and newer units sometimes sit under odd addresses, or are missing from a network's address list, so a checker can say "not available" when the fibre is actually close by. If that sounds like you, it's worth asking someone to look properly.

What's happening with Project Gigabit in Norfolk?

Project Gigabit is the government programme, run by Building Digital UK (BDUK), that pays for gigabit broadband in places the networks won't reach commercially. Norfolk's contract went to CityFibre in June 2023.

BDUK says the redesign removes overlap with networks that are now building commercially, so the public money goes to premises that would otherwise miss out. According to a Norfolk County Council report covered by ISPreview in September 2026, CityFibre is carrying on with the first two phases of the build, covering areas north of Norwich and in the east of the county. The council also said plans for about 11,000 more premises in the west and north-west were well advanced.

Premises that were dropped but still qualify for public money are expected to be offered to suppliers in a new procurement, with a contract expected in late 2026 or early 2027. The council says the programme remains active. BDUK hasn't published a new build timetable, so treat any date for your address as a plan, not a promise.

One door has closed: the Gigabit Broadband Voucher Scheme stopped taking new projects on 31 August 2026. Projects already approved can still be delivered.

How to check whether you can get full fibre

1. Use your exact address, not just the postcode. Check every building you use if you have more than one.
2. Try the Openreach fibre checker. If it says "available to order now", you can order a package from any provider that uses Openreach.
3. Try thinkbroadband's postcode checker. It shows other full fibre networks as well as Openreach.
4. Use the government's gigabit checker to see whether your address is in a funded plan. It's based on build plans gathered in May 2026, and the next update is due in February 2027.
5. Ask your current provider, and note what your contract end date is.
6. If the answer is yes, order it. Nothing changes until you do. There's usually an engineer visit to bring the fibre in.

Or skip the checkers and ring us on 01362 760100. We can check your address while you're on the phone and tell you everything available there: full fibre, other broadband, leased lines, 4G/5G and Starlink. If the checkers disagree, or the address looks wrong, we'll look into it for you.

Can't get full fibre? Your options

Not having full fibre doesn't mean you're stuck. These are the realistic choices for a Norfolk business:

Our guide to choosing between a leased line and business broadband goes into the detail. Whatever you pick, a second connection from a different route is worth having, so one fault doesn't take everything offline.

If you can't get even a basic decent connection, Ofcom's broadband universal service obligation gives homes and businesses the right to request one from BT. In Norfolk that affects less than 1% of premises.

Why this matters more from 2027

The old analogue phone network switches off on 31 January 2027, so your business phones will run over your internet connection from then on. A slow or unreliable line that you've put up with for years starts to matter a lot more when the calls depend on it too. Our PSTN switch-off guide covers what needs to change, and our hosted VoIP phones are built to run over whatever connection you end up with.

How we can help

We supply business broadband, full fibre, leased lines, 4G/5G backup and Starlink ourselves. Ring us and we'll check what's available at each of your addresses while you're on the phone, across all of them, and tell you honestly whether broadband will do the job. If it won't, we'll price the alternatives and set up a backup line so a single fault doesn't stop the business. See our connectivity and WiFi page, or get in touch with your address and we'll take a look.