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John Henry Group Reveals the Obstacles to Building UK Fibre Optic Networks

Monday, Sep 25th, 2017 (12:01 am) - Score 5,394

Mark Heraghty, Non-Executive Chairman of civil engineering firm the John Henry Group, has told ISPreview.co.uk that FTTP lines are the “only real future proof” broadband solution for the UK, but issues with notice and permit schemes, training and wayleaves can hurt progress.

JHG has been around for 30 years and they’re currently one of the fastest growing integrated service providers in the United Kingdom, providing total partnership solutions to companies and organisations seeking to maintain and grow their telecoms or highway infrastructure footprints.

The group started life by helping BT to build their national network and they’re also heavily involved with Virgin Media’s current £3bn Project Lighting network expansion. As a result of that the company now employs more than 1,300 people across 9 offices and depots in the United Kingdom. Suffice to say that they know a thing or two about building next generation broadband infrastructure.

jhg narrow trench digging wide

According to Mark Heraghty, the roll-out of “ultrafast” Gigabit capable Fibre-to-the-Premise (FTTP / FTTH) broadband networks is starting to pick up pace but there are still some areas that need serious improvement. For example, Heraghty complains that they’ve sometimes “had to wait months for the granting of a wayleave” (land access agreement).

Training is another area of concern because the amount of new network builds being planned over the coming months is putting a strain on existing resources. On this point Heraghty warns that “there simply isn’t the quality resource available to realise the ambitions of all ISPs at the present time” and as such he calls for “training centres with approved accreditations” to be formed specifically for FTTH construction in the UK.

Noticing and permit schemes have also been causing headaches for civil engineering firms and Heraghty recommends a simplified process in order to reduce the “amount of detail and timing required” to notice new builds. However these are only some of the challenges involved with building such infrastructure and our full interview covers plenty of other areas.

The John Henry Group Interview

1. Can you tell us a bit about the history of JHG, such as how it came into existence and what you do differently, if anything, from the rest of the market?

ANSWER:
John Henry Group was established 30 years ago, initially working to provide civil engineering services for BT, repairing and building telecoms networks.

Having grown considerably in the past 30 years, the company is experienced further growth of about 35% per cent over the past two financial years and now employs more than 1,300 people across nine offices, offering a national footprint as a partner to major ISP clients, as well as alternative, blue chip and public sector network providers and start-up businesses.

John Henry Group is a recognised innovator. For example, it was the firm behind forward-thinking winning Geo-sight safety and performance technology and narrow trenching civil engineering solutions (not to be confused with micro trenching). The technique allows for telecoms networks to be built at a reduced costs and at a much faster speed than a conventional civils works.

2. Perhaps one of the past year’s biggest events was the Brexit vote to leave the European Union. What are your thoughts on how leaving the EU in a couple of years’ time might impact your company and how you work, if at all?

ANSWER:
In terms of future operatives and management, we are investing heavily in an internal academy and an apprentice’s scheme. The internal academy aims to scout and train members of staff in the business in specific skills sets to help them advance in their career in telecoms and highways related workstreams.

However, of the main challenges for the John Henry Group will be the global mobility challenge around the resourcing of staff/labour to support our projects. The UK currently has a major shortage of civil engineering personnel and in the current climate, there is an increased shortfall due to the ‘boom’ we are experiencing with the construction and maintenance of telecoms networks.

As a result, we have had to look abroad to Europe to find gangs and crews that we can train to work on UK telecoms networks to bridge the gap in the labour market. There may be some concern surrounding the mobility of these engineers and telecoms gang members after we leave the EU and we await the outcome of what leaving the EU will mean in relation to mobility and movement of people across the continent.

Continued on the next page..

Mark-Jackson
By Mark Jackson
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 and .
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