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Hi,
I have complained to Openreach that when they installed fibre cables along our lane, they flew a cable across my property to a neighbour's house rather than route it via the pole outside of her property.
I believe the Digital Economy Act 2017 requires Openreach to exercise the rights it gives them over private property so as to have the least impact on the owners of the land. Routing new cables along the route of the existing telephone lines would have had the least impact.
Openreach's response in August was that where possible it tries to minimise the impact of all cabling works and swap cables out when the network in the area allows. Clearly following the existing telephone lines would achieve that. But Openreach claimed it was unable to achieve this by using the pole outside my neighbour's house, as the best suited pole has the CBT (fibre cable connection) on it and it's not as straight forward as it might seem to have this moved to another pole.
However, on 14th September the pole outside my neighbour's house has been used to route a fibre cable to our neighbour's neighbour. It was a straightforward job of a few hours which, if it had been done at the time my and my neighbour's cables were installed, would have added little time to the job.
Therefore, there was no technical reason why Openreach could not have erected the fibre cables along the route of the existing telephone lines. This would have had the least impact on my property and indeed my neighbour's property, as she now has two cables to her house from different directions.
Do I have a case that Openreach should have installed the cables along the route of the existing telephone lines which had the least impact on the private landowners and can I insist the cable is moved?
I have complained to Openreach that when they installed fibre cables along our lane, they flew a cable across my property to a neighbour's house rather than route it via the pole outside of her property.
I believe the Digital Economy Act 2017 requires Openreach to exercise the rights it gives them over private property so as to have the least impact on the owners of the land. Routing new cables along the route of the existing telephone lines would have had the least impact.
Openreach's response in August was that where possible it tries to minimise the impact of all cabling works and swap cables out when the network in the area allows. Clearly following the existing telephone lines would achieve that. But Openreach claimed it was unable to achieve this by using the pole outside my neighbour's house, as the best suited pole has the CBT (fibre cable connection) on it and it's not as straight forward as it might seem to have this moved to another pole.
However, on 14th September the pole outside my neighbour's house has been used to route a fibre cable to our neighbour's neighbour. It was a straightforward job of a few hours which, if it had been done at the time my and my neighbour's cables were installed, would have added little time to the job.
Therefore, there was no technical reason why Openreach could not have erected the fibre cables along the route of the existing telephone lines. This would have had the least impact on my property and indeed my neighbour's property, as she now has two cables to her house from different directions.
Do I have a case that Openreach should have installed the cables along the route of the existing telephone lines which had the least impact on the private landowners and can I insist the cable is moved?
