Community in Conflict After Removal of Openreach Broadband Cabinet UPDATE

Residents of the Coleham district in the town of Shrewsbury (Shropshire, UK) have moaned after a new “fibre broadband” (FTTC / VDSL2) street cabinet was removed by Openreach following complaints from the local Christian Science Society, which objected to the fact that it blocked the view of their sign.

Over the years we’ve reported on various situations where residents in a community have complained about the size, position or aesthetics of a new FTTC cabinet. On many of those occasions the gripes can be overblown and will tend to ignore the benefits to locals of being able to access superfast broadband speeds of potentially up to 80Mbps (Megabits per second).

The interesting thing about the situation in Coleham isn’t just the fairly small issue at the heart of the problem, but also the fact that other residents have been unhappy to see the cabinet removed because they now have no access to the new superfast broadband service (i.e. one of the few patches in the whole area that hasn’t yet been upgraded).

According to the Shropshire Star, Openreach’s new cabinet was initially installed in-front of the Christian Science Society building (SY3 7DS). Such cabinets tend to be around 4-5 feet tall (1300-1600mm) and this was high enough to obstruct the view (at the bottom) of the Society’s fixed-placement sign and make it tedious for locals to read its bulletins. Suffice to say that complaints were made and the cabinet vanished a few days later.

However not all residents agreed with the decision, particularly one home worker who will now be forced to continue using a slow ADSL2+ line (Virgin Media doesn’t appear to be present in the relevant area). On top of that Openreach has not yet formulated an alternative solution but they are trying.

A Spokesperson for Openreach gave a canned statement:

“Finding a suitable location for this new cabinet in Coleham has been extremely difficult. We completely understand that people living there are keen to see improvements to the local network. But equally, we have to balance that with our responsibility to carry out any work, including where we put new infrastructure, with the views of local residents and community groups.

We’ll be taking another look at this in the future, and people should monitor openreach.co.uk for the latest updates. It might also be worth them checking with their local council around any plans they might have for funding broadband improvements in the future.”

In fairness we can understand why the Christian Science Society were so miffed about the cabinet’s position (check out the newspaper’s image). At the same time local authorities do indeed expect such operators’ to situate their constructions in suitable locations, which must have a minimal impact on residents.

Sadly not having access to superfast broadband is also a negative impact. As such it’s a pity that some sort of compromise couldn’t have been reached as those who are desperate for access to the faster connectivity will now be returned to live in another cloud of uncertainty for awhile.

UPDATE 11th July 2018

The “church” has since said that it offered Openreach a piece of their land rent free and without restrictions for the re-siting of the cabinet, although clearly this didn’t work for the operator as it hasn’t been taken up (it’s entirely possible that the land they offered may have had other infrastructure or obstructions under the surface).