Ofcom UK provisionally finds broadband lines on IX Wireless poles broke rules
The UK telecoms regulator has today issued a provisional ruling against fibre and wireless broadband operator IX Wireless (Opus Broadband), which has found “reasonable grounds for believing” that the operator failed in its duty to ensure that its overhead lines were at the correct height and that they complied with inspection and maintenance rules.
The operator originally held an aspiration to cover 250,000 UK premises with their new network (here), which primarily involves deploying a hybrid fibre and wireless broadband network across several towns in the North West of England, such as Blackburn with Darwen, Burnley, Nelson, Accrington, Thornton-Cleveleys, Fleetwood, Blackpool, Tameside and Oldham etc. Some FTTP has also been built.
However, the “up to” 15-metre-high metal poles that they build haven’t always gone down well with local residents in some of these areas (people often highlight their negative visual appearance), although in fairness they only need to deploy a smaller number of these in order to cover a wide area. Suffice to say that their deployments sometimes attract complaints.
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For example, earlier this year Ofcom provisionally found “reasonable grounds for believing” that IXW had broken its rules by failing in its duty to minimise the visual impact of a metal mast / pole when it was installed in Rochdale during 2023 (here); we’ve yet to see the final outcome from this, but a fine is possible.
Separate to that, the regulator has today provisionally found fault with the height of the operator’s overhead cables, as well as related failings with inspection and maintenance requirements (i.e. intended to ensure such issues do not cause damage or injury).
The probe, which was launched back in September 2025 (here), specifically looked at whether or not IXW had complied with requirements to ensure that lines installed over the carriageway of a maintainable highway are placed at least 5.5 metres above the surface of the road.
In accordance with section 110 of the Communications Act 2003, we have issued IX Wireless Ltd (IXW) with a provisional enforcement notification regarding its compliance with the Electronic Communications Code (Conditions and Restrictions) Regulations 2003/2533 (ECC).
Ofcom considers that there are reasonable grounds for believing that IXW has contravened:
Regulation 4(2)(a), which relates to the height of lines installed over a carriageway; and
Regulation 10(1), which relates to the inspection and maintenance of apparatus.The notification sets out Ofcom’s provisional reasoning and explains the financial penalty we are minded to impose should those contraventions be confirmed. IXW will now have a period of 20 working days in which to make representations to Ofcom, which will be carefully considered before we reach a final decision.
We will provide further updates on the investigation in due course.
Ofcom’s powers in this area remain quite limited (here), so it’s notable how the regulator has still managed to move into a position that could see them imposing a fine against IXW. But the fact that their prior investigation into IXW hasn’t yet concluded does suggest that we might have to wait a few months longer before the regulator reaches its final conclusion.
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Network operators will no doubt be watching the regulator’s investigations very closely, since such things have the potential to set new precedents for their own deployments. On the other hand, IXW’s large metal poles/masts are visually quite different, as well as being much larger, than your typical c.9-10 metre high wooden telegraph / telecoms poles (i.e. any ruling may not be directly translatable to the latter).
Finally, it’s worth noting that the ISPA and INCA last year published new ‘Best Practice Guidance’ for gigabit broadband operators who are building new poles as part of their UK network expansions. The guidance aims to support the Government’s goal of “ending the deployment of unnecessary telegraph poles” (here), not least by requiring providers to engage more closely with communities before they build.
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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Good, as they we’re awful and didn’t need installing in my area as we already have OpenReach and V.M in our area with up to 1gbps broadband.
Hopefully they will take them down.
I agree. They are one dodgy company in my opinion anyway. They’re the remnants of Time and Supanet, and weren’t exactly known then for their good contracts and even now, until recently they were trying to call their service “6G”.
They just seem to me like a company run by a dodgy used car salesman.
Who have given them the right to come on your property to run cable’s a cross your property with out evan asking and no letter sent not even a knock on the door
Is this the same company that just last week wrote complaining to the Secretary of State why their failed and rejected bid for TalkTalk (just the consumer arm) somehow in some universe would be a better outcome than BT Group buying the *whole* of TalkTalk Group for 4 times what they were willing to pay with a giant leveraged loan?
Yeah OK…
The irony of these commenters is that they were most likely the one who complained about a lack of internet and fibre in the first place, then a company tried it’s best to offer a solution to the demand and they got moaned at by the very people who wanted to solution.
It’s also puzzles me why people get so bent out of shape over poles when there’s umpteen amounts of street furniture already filling up their street which are look ugly.
Just because there’s already ugly street furniture doesn’t mean we need more. A pole went up outside my parent’s house over a year ago but there’s still no service offered. Not that it will ever be used when there’s already Openreach, VM and Grain offering FTTP. Pointless overbuild.
That shows how much you know about the situation. There are plenty of other providers around, it’s just that this company erects poles and wiring without thought to other peoples property and rights.
They are not providing Fibre to the Property. They are doing Fibre to a Telegraph pole and then wireless to properties. This has some use cases in rural areas where the cost of laying fibre is prohibitive, but that’s not where they were mostly building.
There is zero need to deploy this technology in built up areas. The user experience is subpar, the installation is much more involved than for a FTTP connection, and it requires much taller telegraph poles than other use cases. They should never have been allowed to build anywhere that wasn’t rural in my opinion.
The major thing they’ve done is demonstrate how unfit for purpose the laws, regulations and regulators are. They took laws intended to allow pole placement for full fibre to the premises and used them for radio backhaul.
They managed to entirely avoid using existing infrastructure due to poorly drafted laws and regulations and have never made any attempt to do so.
Right now they are overbuilding two or three full fibre networks with radio. I’ve no idea what they are doing but it’s certainly not trying to bring fibre to anyone, they don’t sell that, or Internet given most of what they’ve done overbuilt Virgin Media.
They built as cheaply as possible knowing hardly anyone would buy to the point where they spurned PIA as they didn’t want to pay the rental. They can get by on a very low uptake.
That’s a benefit to hugely disproportionate to what they’ve done to the areas they cover with their obsolete technology.
Good reasons why they spent a fair amount of time and money on lobbying and political donations. This should have been killed off before the first project had finished.
They sited one wire for one of their customers living approx 400 yards down the road from us through the top of our ash tree in our back garden. Used the tree as a support before attaching the wire to one of their poles. All without asking permission to come onto our land or warning us in advance it was going to happen. The engineers said it was the company’s right to do that. Talk about a cowboy company. Anyway, we got our local MP involved and it soon got removed.
Did they get any public BDUK money…?
OfCon again, years after the event, who can’t be bothered to be fiscally efficient, let alone who ‘approves’ builds. So what is it now, rework – wasted money that who’s going to end up paying for…
And yet again why not just have a UK national infrastructure ‘Utility’ rather than the fragnet of BDUK dis/organisation who’ll no doubt end up being subsumed into the larger providers, and multiple waste of cennects in varying densities in conurbations and next to nowt in ‘hard to reach’ (i.e. not the low hanging fruit) connectivity requirements for a holistic BDUK.
Someone hade somethig right decades ago:
What a waste! What a waste!
What a waste! What a waste!
Because I tried to play the fool in a six-piece band
Anon
That you spent longer writing that diatribe than it would’ve taken you to confirm that not only didn’t they receive Project Gigabit funding but they couldn’t speaks volumes. Sorry if the private market using their own money was rude enough not to give me fewer options subsidising you.
If Ofcom find that there has been no control or checks on erecting wires lower than 5.5 metres, there will be a heft fine and rightly so.
More broadly I would like to see Ofcom investigate cables left coiled at the base of poles for years on end by altnets. Some around my area have been left taped to the base of poles for over 4 years. This also has similar high risk of injury.
IX internet are an absolute sham company. Don’t know anyone with their service as it’s more expensive and lower quality than existing available options. Guarantee they dissolve in a few years’ time and we’re left with a load of unused poles that nobody will foot the bill to remove. The fact these people tried to use the misleading name of 6G internet shows how inept they are.