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[Bowdon]

https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2018/06/virgin-media-uk-sue-durham-council-over-fibre-optic-rollout-costs.html

Cable broadband ISP Virgin Media has taken the unusual decision to sue Durham County Council (England) in the hope that doing so will enable them to lay new fibre optic cable along grass verges and without having to pay “hefty” fees per metre. The case will test the recently revised Electronic Communications Code (ECC).

At present Virgin Media are deep into their £3bn Project Lightning expansion, which is working to extend their Hybrid Fibre Coax (HFC) and Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) based EuroDOCSIS ultrafast broadband and TV network to an additional 4 million premises by around the end of 2019 (possibly 2020). Once completed it should extend their UK coverage to roughly 60% of premises (1.2 million premises have already been reached).

Meanwhile the revised ECC, which formed part of the 2017 Digital Economy Act, has been designed to make it easier and cheaper for mobile and broadband operators’ to deploy new infrastructure (masts, cables etc.) on public or private land. On top of that it should now be possible for telecoms firms to reach rental agreements that would see them paying about the same as utility providers (gas, water etc.), who often pay less.

This law will now face its first test in Durham. Last year Virgin Media announced that an extra 16,000 homes and businesses in the county would be the next in line for their deployment, which was due to complete by the end of 2019. Unfortunately the operator claims that the council’s fees for land access have effectively put up a “broadband blockade” that is “holding [their] rollout to ransom.”

I think this should be a cause all network builders should get involved with. From my own observations councils can become very clannish and corrupt. It's about time they had a reality check and reminded that the areas arent their personal fiefdoms.

[Weaver]

Sounds good. The council perhaps need reminding that they are supposed to be the servants of the people not their kings or owners of the patch.

[chenks]

i can see it from both sides.

Virgin clearly want to expand the network but it's for their own benefit as a company that they are doing this, to get more customers and increase their profit.

on the other side the councils are often left with shoddy work on the pavements, roads, grass areas. this is something i've seen recently when virgin came and expanded their network in my area. the quality of the digging and refilling was poor to say the least.
digging trenches across roads and leaving them unfilled for days/weeks on end. then when they do come back and fill it in it's shoddy and will be lucky to last a couple of months before it deteriorates again, leaving the council with the problem no doubt (good look getting virgin or their third party digging crew back out to sort it).

if virgin have a valid legal case to sue then they should go for it, but i would also encourage every other council that has been left with pavements falling apart due to their expansion to also sue Virgin.

[broadstairs]

Having seen how shoddy some of the work has been here in Thanet I do agree there needs to be some balance. The council need to charge a sensible amount but VM must ensure a high quality of work from their contractors in all cases. Perhaps one answer would be what I believe is done on some major roads and that is the company rent the road at quite a high rate and if they finish on time with a high quality of work then they get a rebate. That would encourage better quality and faster turnaround and everyone benefits.

Stuart

[Weaver]

The company who is wrecking the roads should have to pay for an assessor who reports to the council and guarantees that remedial work to put things back as they should be is of high quality and will last a long time. There have been some horrible gulleys left in public roads, filled with crappy soft tarmac that will just let water get into it and then it will freeze. In the meantime cares get wheels damaged and motorbikes and especially cyclists are endangered by a crummy surface.

[spring]

Come to think of it, FTTC rollout was denied permission in my city in Israel which held it back for at least a few years. Got FTTC in 2015, but with 3mbit upload to this day as the only DSL provider & owner of all those infrastructures & my street cabinet, does not provide any higher one except for "business customers" so ~300$ vs 30$. I'd say the ISP is far worse than the land owners.

Fibre rollout from competitors probably has a delayed arrival due to this too.

[chenks]

Come to think of it, land owners did the same thing in Israel which held it back for at least a few years.

although to be fair, Israel has other issues that are probably higher on the list than the quality of resurfacing after cable roll-out.

[spring]

although to be fair, Israel has other issues that are probably higher on the list than the quality of resurfacing after cable roll-out.

There was no reason. The mayor of my city simply refused to give permission while almost no other cities refused. I remember it had taken ~2 years for permission.