Southport Residents Block Street to Stop Openreach Pole Build
Angry residents living on Griffiths Drive in Southport (England) have used their cars to block access to the street in an effort to prevent Openreach from deploying poles. The new infrastructure is necessary in order for the operator to deploy their Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) based gigabit broadband ISP network.
In the UK, it’s fairly normal for network operators to deploy c.9m high wood poles in order to run overhead cables (millions have already been built over the decades). Such poles are quick and cost-effective to build, can be deployed in areas where there may be no space or access to safely put new underground cables, are less disruptive (avoiding the noise, access restrictions and damage to pavements of street works) and can be built under Permitted Development (PD) rights with only minimal prior notice.
The lower cost impact of poles can often mean the difference between building a competitive gigabit broadband network into an area or skipping it. But not everybody is a fan and those who complain often focus on their negative visual appearance, as well as concerns about exposure to damage from major storms (example), the lack of effective prior consultation or engineers that fail to follow safety rules while building (examples here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here).
The issue often becomes particularly emotive in areas that haven’t previously had poles before or where they already exist (i.e. excess duplication of infrastructure). In this case, it’s the former, with residents of Griffiths Drive arguing that the cables should be put underground and locals in other nearby streets are threatening to join the protest.
Darren Boyd-Preece, who lives on the street, told LancashireLive:
“This is all happening because Openreach will not put the cables underground. They want to put poles up and string cables up at a high level to our house. The whole street objected to the planning application that was put in, but they simply ignored us. We have tried our best to engage with Openreach but they will not listen to us and won’t even have a conversation.”
The street in question is currently already covered by one gigabit-capable broadband network from Virgin Media, which runs their infrastructure underground via existing ducts (this is a closed network and not available to rivals). But by refusing Openreach’s build, the locals do run the risk of creating a less competitive area for gigabit services in the future and thus restricting themselves to one operator (higher prices, less choice etc.).
On the flip side, Openreach states that their existing copper cables were direct buried in the ground (no spare ducts) and so poles are the quickest, as well as being the most cost-effective, solution for upgrading the street to FTTP.
An Openreach spokesperson said:
“Bringing ultrafast broadband to Southport will create huge benefits for families and businesses in the area for decades to come, as well as a welcome boost to the local economy. Wherever possible we use existing network to build our broadband upgrades but in Southport cables are mainly buried direct in the ground. The scale and cost of civil engineering to install new underground ducts throughout the area just isn’t viable and would involve months of road closures and disruptions.
We know that people feel strongly about poles and understand why. Our local team has engaged extensively with local residents, and also explored every possible option for the build.
Southport has one of the lowest percentages of full fibre broadband coverage in the UK and the existing copper network there is increasingly unreliable, it also takes longer to repair because of the way it was buried historically, so to halt this upgrade would deprive thousands of other local people who want the new technology, both in Southport and surrounding communities.
We’ve communicated our decision to continue the build by using our existing network wherever possible and positioning any new poles sensitively.”
Local authorities are limited in their powers to stop such work and the UK government remains unlikely to pay much heed to any attempts to restrict it, as limitations on the build would seriously damage their own targets for digital infrastructure. Lest we forget that quite a lot of people would also be happy to see poles if it meant they could access more affordable full fibre broadband, but such voices are often drowned out by vocal campaigners.
However, as we always say, network operators do need to be very careful about their approach, particularly as we go into what will be a General Election year – disputes against poles are already attracting some political support. Due to this, quite a few network operators have opted to skip streets when local opposition becomes a problem, but this can result in a confusing patchwork of coverage and isn’t always viable due to the interconnectivity of local infrastructure (some streets are critical junctions for a network).
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 Linkedin.
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If they don’t want poles then they should contribute to the cost of going underground, be that by direct contribution to the cost involved, or by significantly increased pricing of the service provided.
Why should those of us accessible by poles be indirectly subsidising a bunch nimby clowns?
“Clowns”. Yes, yes you are. Check out the street on google maps. It’s a great example of how beautiful our residential streets can be.
I fully agree, they are allowed a preference but must be prepared to cover the additional cost themselves.
I’d rather have something functional over something pretty.
If those residents want the latter, let them pay for it.
Again, don’t see why the rest of us should be indirectly funding vanity.
If they don’t want poles, let them go without. That’s their choice.
Functionality at the cheapest price cannot be the end goal. Just because you would like to live in an ugly communist box, which is proven to break the human mind, it’s on you
Humans have built many beautiful cities that thrived for centuries like Prague and Venice. Then the communists came along and just copy pasted everything at the lowest cost possible and the suicide rate has shot up to record levels
“How dare you not want the uglyness? I will force you to pay the private company more so that it does not cut corners” is an awfully authoritarian out of touch comment
Not to mention that if the area already has virgin but openreach is deploying poles, what happens when openreach poles are full? is the next provider just supposed to add more poles?
Clowns.
Boomer idiots opposed to techology
Ah yes, the older “someone disagrees with me so they must be a *insert insult here*”
For example, boomer, conspiracy theorist, nazi, right ring.
@Gary “How dare you not want the uglyness? I will force you to pay the private company more so that it does not cut corners” is an awfully authoritarian out of touch comment.
The free market (and government) dictates that the cheapest most effective method should be used at scale, if you want more, pay for it otherwise it is ‘authoritarian’ to force a company to make more expensive and less easy to maintain investments.
Angry boomers ITT.
I call a spade a spade. Old people oppose technology and change.
It’s self-evident that you’re collecting your giros.
Because, boomers would never ever dare claim that younger generations are stupid, don’t know what they’re talking about etc. Never.
@MikeW Would you get on a plane if the *only* thing keeping it in the sky was “free market forces keeping costs low”.
I know I wouldn’t.
Critical telecomms infrastructure should never have been subject to free market forces in the first place. Should be nationalised, planned and consistent for everyone.
The residents who live on the street should be given a one vote per home to choose if they want the poles or not. While fiber strung on poles might be the current technology there is likely to be future developments to deliver broadband by new technology which may leave all these ugly poles redundant. I recall watching a tv program back in the 90s where a wealthy computer expert was having a very grand large new house built, where he had specified for lots of large rectangular trunking to be installed that was full of 10 Mb twisted pair networking cables running to multiple network sockets in every conceivable place in the house where he might want some networked equipment. Only a few years later along came WI-FI making all this trunking/cabling and sockets rediculously redundant.
@Gary
“Functionality at the cheapest price cannot be the end goal. Just because you would like to live in an ugly communist box, which is proven to break the human mind, it’s on you”
I suggest you avoid places like communist hotbeds San Francisco and Tokyo where there is significant overhead cable!
Id happily pay towards cables being put underground rather than poles stood about everywhere!
@Testy McTestFace
I never mentioned airlines and your analogy is stupid for a couple of reasons:
“Would you get on a plane if the *only* thing keeping it in the sky was the free market”
No, I do believe in regulation however fibre (the technology itself) self regulates to internationally agreed standards so your point is moot. We only regulate process and outcome about fibre and internet providers.
“Critical telecomms infrastructure should never have been subject to free market forces in the first place. Should be nationalised, planned and consistent for everyone.”
*sigh* are you both dense how would this be a good idea when we are just getting a more mature ISP market (altnet consolidation) with more competition for the dominant provider.
I do not want a nationalised provider because it will be ‘consistent for everyone ‘ but not everyone needs a consistent service and most are happy to take advantage of unique services that private companies provide. I see this point as self evident. (If you want free internet, which I assume for some reason , I would just provide a customer with an option from any provider within a certain value.)
And finally… A NATIONALIZED ISP WILL ALSO PUT UP POLES if it’s cheaper. Thank you for attending my ted talk.
P.S: just because someone says the free market we don’t mean anarcho-capitalist. Calm down
I agree make everyone in the community foot the bill then soon understand the reason they use poles.
A nationalised network would not necessarily mean a single ISP. Logically you would nationalise the physical network (eg Openreach) while still allowing individual ISPs to run their service over that infrastructure, just as we do now.
It would also remove the economical barrier as to where you roll out new infrastructure as it would be entirely dictated by the need of the people, not share holders. The return on investment is not about profit from the network itself, but how access to that technology benefits the people and in turn the economy as whole.
Openreach should just move on. There are plenty of us with no fibre option more amenable. Let them enjoy the house price impact from not having competitive fibre.
This, but I’d go further and argue that streets where utility company staff have encountered behaviour like this should become exempt from USO obligations.
The really sad thing about this and the modern obsession with attention is that there will be a silent majority who want better broadband and don’t care about poles but are being intimidated or misrepresented by the louder minority.
Yes, couldn’t possibly be BT’s fault that they didn’t do the job properly in the first place and used direct buried cables and now want to do on the cheap.
Lets have poles, with wiring strewn everywhere for an ALTNET to then come along and add a few extra poles and more spaghetti wiring.
What people don’t understand on here, is that not everyone wants fibre, especially if they are happy with what they got. There is a sense of entitlement and that only your opinion matters. BT can microtrench cheaply enough, they just inflate the figures around it, to use as an excuse for cheaper pole deployment and because its faster and they left it so long to deploy FTTP that they are in a race with others.
Actually Jonny, lets go a step further. For those operators that did stuff on the cheapie cheapie originally and stupidly decided to direct bury cables, those should be an automatic “must trench” mandate.
In a so-called democracy, let the local people decide over poles and wiring instead of big corporates deciding for their own money making business – there’s a thought.
This,
There will be people on that street who want BT Fibre, and they are been stuck…
Maybe mark it a do not deploy and regrade to 512K ADSL for everyone on that street….
Nah, let them have fixed wireless access and have them moan about the infrastructure for that, and then the lack of signal due to no line of sight (coz they insisted on it not being an eyesore).
Surely there is already existing Open Reach ducting in place as they must of had copper lines? FTTC? Otherwise more fool them if they want to be restricted to one provider only, but it does sound like the usual minority disrupting services for the majority.
If they had and have copper lines then BT should be using that ducting first, not sticking poles up everywhere, if not then and no copper lines exist then let them choose to have one provider only, I’m sure the war that will break out amongst the residents will be worth it for such limited selection.
The article says they don’t have ducts – that the old copper cables were buried directly in the ground.
a industry view on the difference cost between the overhead and underground option will be significant if there is non duct in the road– a rough estimate 400 -500 at a pole level and close to £1000 -£1300 fro underground per premise if there is not duct and you have to dig up the road. you can imagine the press and PR and letters to MP if the community was asked to raise 500 – 600 per premise to have it built underground
Direct buried through doing it on the cheap (again).
Direct buried through doing it on the cheap (again).
really this was when it was state owned public company and has probably been in place since the late 60s or early to mid 1970s and the planning at the time would have said all you need to do is provide a phone line
i live on one of these type of estates myself where the part of the estate i live on is no duct the main road from which the estate is accessed is ducted and has an altnet on the main road
@Fastman estimates sound a bit high.
If altnets get a business case on a 30% (or less takeup) then BT with a 70% takeup (Virgin also operates there) can do the same business case at over 2x the cost. They can afford to go underground.
Alex: the Openreach maths has to be based on how much more revenue they’ll receive compared to copper, not a start from zero as with an altnet.
Plus, if Openreach pay to put ducts in, they’re obliged to make them available to their competitors.
(Same applies to poles too of course – but if Openreach are required to help their competitors, they’ll want to spend the smallest amount of money on doing so).
We have direct buried cables, on an estate built in the 70s. We’ve been told it will probably never be economical to put fibre here, for any commercial provider. Not even on poles. BTOR and the primary altnet down here have both responded with (paraphrasing) “no chance, sorry.”
We’re are not part of any govt plans, and nobody wants to even acknowledge we exist. And this is Cornwall, supposedly the poster child for great fibre roll-outs.
Will be much fun to see what happens when they retire the copper.
Isn’t it great to have infrastructure in private hands. I’m enjoying it.
“We’re are not part of any govt plans”
Yes you are. Project Gigabit regional contract for Cornwall and Isles of Scilly (Lot 32) is in procurement with estimated contract award date April to June 2024.
Alex A my estimates are correct based on my industry expertise and previous knowledge of doing this
@CJ Sadly not. What you’ve written doesn’t matter, and may not matter for many, many years to come.
To make a long story short (and I’ve written to everybody from Superfast Cornwall to the Dept for Media Culture and Sport).
BTOR have “claimed” our street. Because we’re direct in ground, they’ve candidly told me they have no intention of doing anything with us. However, they *have* cabled up the surrounding area which has ducts. And because of this, they’re able to “claim” our street, too.
I’ve been told by DCMS that because BTOR have “claimed” us, they cannot act. We will not be part of the BDUK/project gigabit funding until and unless BTOR relinquish their “claim”.
Why it works like that is anybody’s guess, but if I were cynical: BTOR don’t want any other company helping us, and the govt don’t want to spend money on us.
Good on those people. If Virgin is able to do it properly then why is openreach cutting corners. It’s not like they are much cheaper than Virgin. Maybe they should’ve deployed proper ducts the first time around rather than halfassing it
Well said. Agree.
Virgin’s predecessors went bankrupt building that network, btw.
Probably better for OR to move it to the back of the list and work on areas that would appreciate the investment in a future proof internet service.
Laying an access network in the 1960s and 1970s using armoured cable instead of being able to predict the creation and widespread adoption of the internet, eventually requiring replacement with a different type of cable due to the increased bandwidth requirements, cannot be categorised as “halfassing it”. Of course a duct would be better, but how are you sitting in a civils department and fighting your corner 50 years ago when asked to defend the costs?
You could make the same argument that doing PON instead of point-to-point fibre is doing it on the cheap, except most people understand why those decisions have been made and accept it.
@Jonny PON is a bit cheaper but BTs main choice for it is lock-in. It’s very difficult for any network to use their own terminating equipment (unlike copper unbundling) so they are all tied to using Openreach OLTs, ONTs, etc. and the inflated prices of using them.
For example, when FTTC first launched Openreach had to supply the modem, at a £50+ billable item to the ISPs. Many ISPs weren’t happy that they had to pay extortionate rates for something they could supply themselves (bundled into a router) for a lot less cost. It was only after Ofcom forced them that Openreach offered a wires-only FTTC option.
@Jonny you’re exactly right.
Imagine being that civics guy that planned for flying car time machines, but was told no because of the cost. He’d have been out of a job for wasting his time on fanciful ideas.
Alex – I don’t think there’s a serious and credible PON network operator anywhere in the world that allows third party equipment to be attached to the fibre, at least not without a huge amount of validation. Unlike DSL there’s a lot more scope for misconfigured equipment to cause real problems.
Closest will be devices with SFP ports, and that’s an option Openreach would likely consider *if their customers, the ISPs, wanted it*.
Wires only VDSL had its downsides too, as Openreach required all hardware to be (re)validated before it could be connected to their network. Every firmware upgrade would need OR’s approval before it goes out. Every new device. They don’t need to do that with FTTP at present.
I’m not aware of Ofcom requiring wires only – more that VDSL (later G.fast) modems were so few and far between so it made sense for Openreach to kick off with their own approved device until the ISPs were ready to go. It’s not like OR wanted the modems either, as every install required a visit.
You also have to think about what you wish for. Integrated ONTs mean even more ISP equipment lock in…
“they are all tied to using Openreach OLTs, ONTs, etc. and the inflated prices of using them”
Those “inflated” prices are set by the regulator. And when Openreach tries to reduce them, the Altnets cry foul.
@Ivor I’m not aware of any allowing 3rd party ONTs onto their PON, but a few PON operators allow access to the fibre itself.
Over in Switzerland Swisscom run fibre P2P to the exchange with central splitters there. Other ISPs like Init7 can use these fibres to provide their own service. When Swisscom switched to the BT model, Init7 complained that it was anti competitive and was successful. It was found that P2P to the exchange was only 10% more than remote splitters (BTs build).
Over in France fibres are ran P2P to a cabinet (called a PMZ) and a smaller number of fibres is run to the exchange. Splitters for each operator are located in the cabinet and switching providers is repatching which splitter you are connected to. From the operator point of view its no different to having your own physical fibre.
Both of these models allows operators to use PON and share fibres.
Generic Ethernet Access with a managed ONT/OLT is good for small suppliers but should be done by BTWholesale (like IPStream) not Openreach. BTs model combines the terminating and the physical layer, it makes the network more profitable but more expensive for customers and less flexible.
@NE500 it isn’t just the charges of the tier. As the operator you pay for the install, you pay for the GEA cablelink, you pay for access locate for your equipment. If an ONT is missing you pay for the Openreach engineer then an additional £69.50 for a missing/broken ONT.
Openreach makes a lot of money out of engineer visits, its FTTC/FTTP model increases Openreach engineer visits as the ISPs own techs can’t do much at the customer end.
It should not be necessary to build more than one fibre optic network in the same area. Networks should be open to all ISPs just as Openreach and Cityfibre are. Only where the current network is inadequate should a rival network be built. This could be encouraged by introducing tax incentives for compliant networks. Also local councillors should have a say on whether connections should go under or above ground, and if they insist on a more expensive option, be answerable to their voters at the next election.
Incidentally, one of the good things about the slow dial-up internet we used in the old days was that it was possible use any ISP over the same connection. Nowadays subscribers are limited to one ISP per connection, and switching ISPs is a palaver.
30 years too late with that idea.
Most ducting will have plenty of room once the copper is removed
There is no ducting. Did you read the post?
My place is 60 years old and has direct in ground telephone cable. It still works. How could they have foreseen the need to run fibre or any other additional cable 60 years ago ?
exactly
some people clearly have no engineering idea how the telecomms naetwork has evolved and how we get to where we are now
Good, screw BT, they don’t want it, then don’t push it.
Let me elaborate more on this….
1st, screw BT is in regards to them choosing to only enable services where there’s no instructions or cheap methods are available… So many areas are left without service from WLR lines now due to them being in FTTP areas but Openreach BT marking clusters of addresses as not financially viable, often leaving those residents and customers vulnerable to monopolisation from the like of Virgin Media and some people being forced to pay £51 per month for a basic cable broadband package.
As for the the people in this individual case, make them sign to say they don’t want the service (each address that is) and that will be those people accepting they will be liable to costs of maintaining either an existing copper service or the future installation of a service.
However I will add this, there’s a statement saying that objections or comments to planning applications where ignored and to be honest this is becoming comkon wether or not there is positive or negative feedback, in the area I used to live Three applied 4 times with plans to install Phase 8 or 9 monopoles when it was desperately needed due to limited calls coverage nevermind data, however the council in Birmingham was overriding positive feedback from the area and refusing the applications, the suspicion was that the somehow elected Green party was responsible for this, this area is also an example of the above where there is now no service from Openreach BT lines as the exchange has gone FTTP and the lines are exceeding lengths where not even 2mbps is serviceble and most pairs are condemned due to breakages or crosstalk.
I believe a community has right to decide what’s in it, specially if homes are brought and tenants are permanent
Incredibly unserious country. Little wonder that nothing can get built.
quite. you think BT had proposed to build a landfill in the nearest park or something, not a simple wooden pole. Even some of the comments in here are ridiculous.
NIMBYism will be the death of this country. It’s already a tremendous financial drag as those companies who want to invest and modernise are blocked at every turn.
Indeed. Planning laws are ridiculous, yet here even where we have permitted development the locals cry foul.
Reminds me of that council that refused to build a road coz it meant they also had to build (allow someone else to build) homes, whilst concurrently having a housing shortage within the council area.
A rational mind would kill both birds with one stone.
KCom recently put all their cables underground for our small town. There were very few complaints and where there were issues with the surfaces above their new ducting channels their contractprs fixed them very quickly. We also have a newer power station in a nearby town and they put all of their cables underground. The older power station next to it put miles of pylons in. The problem is tourists don’t go to the Lake District to look at pylons.
People need to love the world enough not to industrialise it just so someone can make more money.
+1
KCom, the company that runs a monopoly in the place it operates, that KCom? In a tiny arse area, too.
They have expanded outwards and accross the river to other towns and villages 4chAnon.
Isn’t there a specific law making it illegal to interrupt a telecom worker conducting lawful work?
If a job is worth doing, it is worth doing properly and burying cables in areas that are already underground.
Although with the fibre bubble, if Openreach directly bury fibre tubes, an altnet or two will turn up later with their own poles.
so you paying the £700 plus difference per premise (which the average differecne between no duct underground to duct or pole provision
I suspect it is more about speed than cost in this location.
My hometown.
Alot of the cables are direct bury and there’s no existing ducting.
Arrest them.
10 years jail time.
That’ll fix these idiots. I bet they were all boomers too, who think their FTTC is fibre
NIMBYism is one the the UK’s greatest weaknesses.
Imagine if the NIMBYs has their way in the past, no roads, gas, electricity, railways, telephone network, let alone FTTP broadband.
Behave…. This is a totally stupid comment.
There is an underground structure needing replacement, replacement being key word, not additional works.
@JP
No he is correct, it’s also why 5G is being held back.
How can they replace what never existed to begin with
Well done for those people. Stand up for your own streets
Pure greed move by openreach to cheap out on build, especially when they have insane deep pockets
The solution when a new network comes along can’t just be to add another pole otherwise streets will have 3 poles for 3 different providers
It won’t be.
If OR are forced to go underground then the Altnets get free PIA access at OR expense.
That’s the climate that they’re operating in.
If everyone else can get a free ride off them but they can’t get a free ride off others, why would they choose the most expensive build option?
If Openreach are forced to go underground, they are likely to be using directly buried tubes which the altnets wont be able to PIA.
This could alter the build sums positively for takeup for Openreach and negatively for altnets who will have to fit their own poles or tubes.
First off PIA is not free. In a wacky multiverse where BT stops existing and alts take over, OR is getting tons of passive money return in PIA
Second they had a free ride out of the taxpayer and numerous govt schemes, not to mention incumbency and a long monopoly
Third they should build to make people happy, not install things they don’t want on their streets. Competition is irrelevant
“The street in question is currently already covered by one gigabit-capable broadband network from Virgin Media, which runs their infrastructure underground via existing ducts (this is a closed network and not available to rivals).”
It’s time Ofcom grew some balls and made all PIA mutual.
While I agree, its tricky as the whole reason this was forced on OR was because they were effectively a monopoly due to originally being the only telco and so inheriting a lot of legacy ducting and poles that gave them a huge advantage over everyone else.
You can also run into issues where the existing ducting simply doesn’t have the capacity.
Openreach should just refuse to deliver FTTP there and instead continue to deliver to areas that do want it with no fuss.
Those Nimbys can always restrict themselves to VM or using outdated and unreliable FTTC connections.
Selfish behaviour from the residents there.
Wonder what the life of ducted cables is compared to flown ?
Surely, that would make ducted cables win-out on the greatest function to fulfill . . . .keeping the long-term cost low.
If, on the otherhand your intent is not to create enduring infrastructure but rather book asset entries that can be traded . . . .
With climate change, extraordinary weather conditions are becoming more frequent . . .as are awesome traffic accidents with sequalae, so more likely that flown cables may be damaged and/or brought down and third parties and their property damaged. Think of costs of more frequent re-connect and the third-party claims. Whereas the worst that can happen to ducted is that it gets severed by an errant contractor or flooded.
In the past, it was going down the short-term, lowest cost route for installation that had everybody complaining about a shoddy quality of service . .think the cost-cutting aluminium wire that was deployed (Flown) from existing street poles to homes in the late 1960s and 1970s for the analogue phone service. Under direct exposure to the weather,the metal wire crystalised in no time leading to “Snap, crackle and pop” that made phones calls near impossible.
I wonder for how long the plastic coatings of fibre-cables would be proof against freeze-thaw and intense sunshine or for how long the glass fibres are rated for deformation by air flow ?
An “Over-build” in all senses of the word.
Exclusively to the benefit of OpenReach’s competitive marketing stance and profit harvesting.
Ridiculous, that when finances are reported to be so tight, HMG allows the obvious duplication of service provision and economic waste of over-build. The privatisation of the other utilities didn’t result in duplicate installation of infrastructure.
I think that’s what the call “Nugatory work” in the public services . . and their would be tidal wave scale clamours for reduction of waste and taxes to be cut . . . but as it is “Private”, apparently government policy sanctions waste . . . .making the economy look healthier than it is ?
For the benefit of many ISPs.
What you call overbuild, I call redundancy and competition.
Having multiple networks gives you the option to have a reliable backup service and cheaper prices.
Some of the cables in London are over a hundred years old and that includes unducted ones. So if life of ducted cabling is 100 years+ even a £1,000 installation per premises could be amortised inexpensively.
I have a much better solution which is well balanced. Once opposition to poles in a street is detected by the network building out it should stop the build and notify the council. The council then sends letters for a 3 week consultation on whether the poles should be allowed for the whole street/section. People vote and have their say. The council then notifies the network of the result. If the go ahead people won, the network can call the police to enforce their rights to build and remove any protesters. Simple solution, easy to implement and solved in a democratic way.
Wish this was implemented for LTNs. Too bad overpayed bored council workers decide their authoritarian agenda needs to crackdown on citizens they are supposed to serve
That’s taking things to the extreme ? Wouldn’t a consultation exercise be a wasteful exercise in this case ? Its fluffing over-build, non-starter, end of story. And the existing street provider (Virgin) are reported to have a national programme to replace Co-ax with fibre within the next few years.
Why do it, unless you’re trying to undermine a potential like-for-like competitors programme.
The whole notion of micro-competition at sub-district/regional level is stupid and has probably done more to delay the uniform introduction of fibre across the country than anything else.
I don’t think what these residents have done is unreasonable. Alternative viable methods in keeping with current deployments for the area are available, but just not utilised. It’s interesting that other operators in the area have managed underground…
Openreach referencing the higher fault rate here is disingenuous. Poor previous deployment methods and ongoing maintenance is to blame – as mentioned there are pockets of direct dig but what isn’t mentioned is the nature of some of these lines; There is aluminium and still lead in Southport (of course denied). Those services have disproportionately higher fault rates than the other properly deployed underground services which are inherently more reliable; and even more so when you move to fibre!
The fact other operators have managed underground can also raise another problem, no space to do so and a higher chance of damaging existing underground services if you do.
If the area is a direct in ground buried solution from the 60/70s.
That isn’t BTs fault as it was not installed for the Internet nor was that even a thing.
Virgin media if in the area will also most likely be direct buried depending on when they did the work.
If the residents do not want poles, and want their roads dug up instead to complain about poor work and how patchwork their street look let them foot the bill.
The amount of people who moaned at me when i was carrying out surveys including areas part of USO saying they don’t want fibre. When i explained its for the future they insisted they won’t sell and they will live to 700 years old.
People need to accept that this isn’t directly for them and they it isn’t financially possible even for massive companies to dig up everywhere.
Arrest em, blocking telecoms workers is a criminal offence.
People’s do bemoaned about 5G mast, openreach fttp pole. If they don’t want it fine let them have slow broadband and its their own loss.
You’re damn right, Phill
I take it that there must be an above average number of bitcoin and other financial traders living in this street whose livelihoods depend on speed being of the essence.
If Openreach has their wicked way with this street, then they’ll have no excuse with my NW London street, which already has Virgin installed and OR/BT poles (Dating back to the 1930s) and which, unfortunately, according to BT Wholesale Checker, only offers FTTP 300Mbps down ON DEMAND.
I can feel a complaint to OFCOM coming on.
If you want FTTP on demand order it?
Find a supplier and get a quote.
It’s a separate product designed for business to pay for a fttp connection.
@Luke: Residential customers can also order FTTP on demand, if they can afford it, but in many cases the high cost would be prohibitive.
Please keep us informed. A complaint to Ofcom that a private company hasn’t seen fit to spend money getting fibre to you should be interesting.
Southport never used to allow ANY overhead cables at all, unless they were the overhead lights on the prom.! All telephone cables had to be underground, so it was not unusual in the “old days” for phone services to be out because of flooding.
If Openreach are trying to install a telegraph pole then I assume they’re either flouting local by-laws or else Southport has changed its tune.
Overhead FTTP is done for cost saving and speed of rollout. Things move on but to me, going back to overhead lines is a backwards step as they’re more exposed to the elements and people crash into the poles taking out service for many.
Even in the depths of Tanhouse we have underground cables, and we even used to have a communal TV antenna that served the whole estate.
@Non scouser in Skem
Places that have underground are usually because the copper was new enough that it was put into ducts, not direct in ground.
Fresh ducting is expensive, very disruptive, takes longer, there may not even be space next to existing utilities and potentially looks worse as you can end up with patches of fresh tarmac mixed with the old.
Ducting is also still prone to damage from roadworks and much harder to fix whereas overhead while sure subject to the elements, can be fixed quickly.