Telecoms Minister Chris Bryant holds meeting on telegraph pole complaints

In the speech by Sir Chris Bryant at Connected Telecoms more action on pole complaints was aluded to, and a first step actually took place this afternoon as the Minister for Telecoms met 15 telecommuncitions operators to highlight the level of complaints.

Meeting with 15 telecommunication operators this afternoon, Minister Bryant voiced the concerns of Britons that have telegraph poles lodged outside their home, often without being told beforehand.

The Minister shared that many poles are installed in a way that is “not considerate to anyone’s way of life”.

He shared that these poles are often placed very close together and carry remarkably similar equipment, that companies could share if they worked better together.

Speaking at the meeting, Ofcom also raised concerns that too many residents are surprised to see poles installed outside their homes, with many not being informed beforehand.

Telecommunications operators committed to finding ways to collaborate and share infrastructure including poles more effectively, as well as looking at ways to consult residents more consistently and effectively.

Chris Bryant called for “urgency” in delivering on these issues.

Telecommunications operators in attendance included Openreach, Virgin Media O2, KCom, as well as alt-nets such as CityFibre, MS-3, Brsk, IX Wireless.

Copy of summary from meeting between Minister and telecoms operators

Many complaints are concentrated in the KCOM area where there is no PIA product that competing operators are happy to use. Another expected company attending is IX Wireless who in addition to often using poles to run the fibre to the cabinets and mast are installing large masts across the North West. 

For those networks rolling out in areas where Openreach PIA is actually available, there has to be questions as to why operators avoid the PIA option. One reason can be that installing your own infrastructure is a capex cost, whereas the PIA products mean an operating cost for as long as you have your network on the poles or in ducts. There is pressure on Ofcom from various quarters to revisit the regulated PIA pricing to make it cheaper for alt-nets.

To date at scale Openreach is the only network sharing infrastructure at scale in terms of fixed line broadband, but that has taken many years to scale up to the point where around 1/3 of Openreach ducts/poles are in use with a PIA service.

For alt-nets who have rolled out their own duct and poles in places that had no existing infrastructure that was shareable, reaching sharing agreements makes perfect sense to reduce duplication. Another alternative would be to create a pathway to installing ducting in the first place, avoiding poles from alt-nets apart from in limited cases where its the only viable option. The problem is the price of building ducting is so much higher than poles and running overhead fibre, plus with the fibre drop points on a pole installing to each property is easier. Even if an alt-net knows another party is going to share the ducts, the revenue stream is unlikely to be enough to offset the cost of building a duct network.

Around the issue of poles appearing without warning, we have seen people saying they hate poles so much that they rip the notification notices down in anger. The notices usually attached to existing street furniture are easy to miss partcularly if like millions you leave your front door and get in a car, rather than walk down the pavement to a bus stop or corner shop. Best practice and engagement should leaflets or letters going to individual households, and maybe public meetings to showcase what is going to happen in the area.

Another type of pole that is appearing in some areas is smart meter poles with a small radio at the top to receive data from residents water meters and broadcast that back to a central point.