New Operator Delambre Infrastructure Planning UK FTTP Build
A new Cheshire-based alternative network provider called Delambre Infrastructure has just cropped up with a vague ambition to deploy a gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network to “provide ultrafast broadband to households and small and medium-sized enterprises.”
Once again this plan was revealed as part of the company’s request for Code Powers from Ofcom (here), which are often sought by new and existing operators in order to help speed-up the deployment of new networks and cut costs by reducing the number of licenses needed for related UK street works.
The company has stated that it intends to deploy this FTTP network in areas currently not served by such networks, typically areas served only by BT’s copper access network, and they will probably make some use of Openreach’s existing cable ducts and poles in order to run their own fibre (PIA – Physical Infrastructure Access).
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Interestingly the sole Director of this company is Graham Robert Bell, who is also linked to the Lightspeed Group and MGMT, which we covered back in June 2020 (here) – MGMT was also seeking code powers from Ofcom. Meanwhile companies house notes that Delambre Infrastructure has this year gone through several confusing name changes – LSA2 LTD > LIGHTSPEED CONSTRUCTION LTD > VELOTON INVESTMENTS LTD > Delambre.
Otherwise that’s all the detail we could find and we’re still waiting to see what this new group will actually deliver.
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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We are going to have to make all the UK pavements wider to fit in all the new ducting being installed by the myriad of companies given code powers.
Having just had O/R upgrade my area to FTTP and seen the amount of work that’s been done to use O/R’s ducting in pavements, I would say there is very little point in trying to use it.
As an example from the end of my road to the pole suppling my property (around 150m), O/R have had to repair no less than 7 different parts of the run and unused cables have not been removed, leaving the ducts short on space and in a number of cases they have looped from one pole to another, rather than unblocking the ducts.
If they are talking about new build estates with fully underground ducting, they may be OK but then I would have thought that ducting would have been done by the builders of the properties.
I agree, much of the duct installed before 1984 is pretty much unusable, I think these FTTP providers think they’re getting the golden shot with PIA, but I guess it’s up to OR to repair or replace what they can’t use.
That is the problem with trying to modernise a network designed to be maintained by a small army.
Once upon a time clay ducts looked sensible – not so much these days.
I am a but puzzled that OR are not cutting out the sections of unused copper as they do duct maintenance. It would make it easier and less risky to pull the remainder out particularly if you can chop it into 10-20m sections as they are less likely to be jammed in with cables twisted around them. It is a while-we-are-there-and-doing-stuff kind of job. Would give more capacity for OR to rent duct space to others.
@A_B – where is there much unused copper? Copper between exchanges was probably removed years ago when replaced by fibre. And a multi-pair cable can only be removed when every pair is unused (obviously).
Cool lets hope they can do some areas not already covers by half a dozen providers
Some overhead poles are going to look a right mess with copper DP’s, Openreaches FTTP CBT’s and competitors Fibre blocks on them. Wouldnt want that in my street, let alone a pole outside my windows! Many poles are going to end up being overloaded with dropwires/fibres. Many Openreach FTTP guys leave the existing copper dropwire up, and just run a seperate fibre off the pole ringhead to the home, instead of putting the copper line onto the hybrid fibre/copper drop cable…
My grandfather had his copper cable replaced with a fibre and copper cable so looks no different than the original did.
Im on about the pole end. Copper and Fibre Blocks from numerous suppliers on already congested poles. Your grandfather was done properly, but many contractors leave the copper line as is and run another drop fibre off the pole to save time. So 2 drops to the home instead of 1. A contractor gets paid £35 per fttp install. More they do, the more they get paid. Its quicker to just run another drop, than to remove the old copper wire and swap the dial tone onto the hybrid copper/fibre cable, with a above ground closure onto the existing copper lead in at the eaves.
Round here the overhead lines often go above 3-4 gardens so it’s easier/faster by far to use the old copper to pull across a new hybrid cable to replace it. £35 sounds awfully tight, it wouldn’t cover minimum wage for the FTTP installs that I’ve seen done..