For most people a fast reliable broadband connection is a necessity. Unfortunately, for some residents of East Wickham in Welling an extremely slow connection is all that's available. If your internet connection is via a standard telephone line it makes no difference what Internet Service Provider you choose. They all connect via a BT/Openreach street cabinet, and if thats not fibre enabled, the internet is very slow!

The area that is served by the BT/Openreach cabinet called "Kidbrooke PCP2" has no other option but to use this old slow ADSL connection. BT/Openreach were scheduled to enable the cabinet for fibre broadband in 2010. Since that date BT/Openreach have given many excuses, the most popular is that there are too many cables and pipes in the location of the proposed new cabinet. This means that there is no fibre broadband available and hundreds of local households have to suffer from a substandard internet connection.

The speed averages 3-4Mbps down and 0.2Mbps up, meaning that sometimes it's impossible to use the internet. For example, it's not possible to watch Netflix, Youtube or iPlayer when anyone else is using the same connection. Also, uploading files of more than a few megabytes in size is not possible, and working from home via the internet is simply not feasible. 

What makes this even worse is that every other telephone cabinet in the local area has been upgraded long ago and other options like Virgin are not available. Last year new houses were built on the old Hill View council site and have fibre directly to the house, bypassing the need for a telephone cabinet. They enjoy 330Mbps download speeds and a useable internet connection.

The area is about nine miles from central London and yet the internet speed for people connected to this cabinet is slower than some of the most remote places in the UK.

We call on BT/Openreach to upgrade the "Kidbrooke PCP2" cabinet now, without delay.

How to help.

• Sign this petition and ask others to do the same.
• Register with Virgin Media, the more people that register the better!
• Ask our MP James Brokenshire to talk to Openreach about the problem
• Complain to Openreach
• Complain to @OpenreachGB on Twitter
• Complain to BT
• Send your story to BBC Watchdog
• More information can be found at www.wellingfibre.co.uk

These could be the affected postcodes:

DA16 2RE  
DA16 2RJ  
DA16 3QU 
DA16 3RT 
DA16 3RH 
DA16 3NL 
DA16 3RL  
DA16 3LQ  
DA16 3LG  
DA16 3RB 
DA16 3RE 
DA16 3LW 
DA16 3NP 
DA16 3NR 
DA16 3RA 
DA16 3LH 
DA16 3RD 
DA16 3AH  
DA16 3LL  
DA16 3LN 
DA16 3LD 
DA16 3RG