Freedom Fibre/telegraph poles – update Friday 18 November
After posting notices to say that we were to hold a meeting with Freedom Fibre, a number of residents got together from both housing estates on Monday 14th November, and we attended the meeting so we could ask the questions that they raised. On Thursday 17th, the meeting was held with Freedom Fibre. It was agreed that we would reconvene with attendees from the earlier meeting to explain what was said.
Cllrs John Ryder, Sandy Cameron and Richard Chandler met with the resident representatives on Friday the 18th November to report back on their meeting with Freedom Fibre (FF) the previous afternoon.
The Friday meeting was joined by Mike Duggine CW&C Digital Infrastructure Manager
It was stressed by John Ryder that the three councillors were there to provide information given to them by FF and not to give opinion.
Mike outlined the reasons why full fibre optic cabling is going to be necessary in the future and, without getting technical, the current copper wires will not be able to cope with everything demanded of them as everything from TVs, health monitoring devices to cookers are connected to the internet and stream an increasing amount of data.
Some in the meeting said that there was no current problem with internet speeds so why do we need unsightly poles and wires for something we don’t currently need?
John then passed on the salient points made by FF:
- Under Permitted Development they have the right to erect poles without consultation.
- The FF representatives thought that letters had been sent to all residents on the estates prior to the notices being attached to telegraph poles etc. but were persuaded that FF had, in fact, failed to send them out.
- The reason that poles and wires are the proposed solution, as opposed to ducting them underground, is that the ducting, such as there is, is almost all un-useable (collapsed, blocked, too full etc)
- To install new ducting in the street would be very expensive and disruptive.
- Even if it was in the street, to get it ducted into an individual property from the street would cost each householder in the region of £250-£1000 whereas connecting a house to a pole would be free to the end user.
- FF will now implement a rod and rope survey next week to assess the ducting infrastructure and then will send out consultation letters to all residents on the two estates and wait for responses before proceeding.
- If the response is overwhelmingly negative they will walk away.
- The rest of the village with poles already erected can still be connected, no matter what happens on the estates.
- If some parts can be used and others not, a hybrid duct and pole system is possible across the estates
John pointed out that Open Reach could come along at a later date and erect poles if FF have backed out, but was told by a senior Open Reach manager that it would be at least a “couple of years” before they’d likely think about it. Evidence from Barnton suggests that where an estate rejects an operator like FF, another provider will come along and erect poles without consultation.
FF said they will open their pole network to other Internet Service Providers in 2023. It is possible that where no commercial agreement can be made, “double poling” could occur but this should be rare.
Mike said that it is possible the village may qualify for a government voucher scheme and is checking on whether that’s the case. If so he would contact FF to see if they would work with the scheme. If not, then other providers could be approached, although there is no guarantee an alternative supplier will be found who would be willing to work with the scheme. The advantage of this would be more money to put towards underground ducting but even with this money, the cost of ducting to the users is likely to be significantly more than poles and wires..
If the voucher scheme becomes available, the Parish Council offered to help survey the estates to ask about likely take-up. This would be a Community led initiative
It is vital that when Freedom Fibre letter arrives, a response is fed back to them, positive or negative, by everyone who receives the letter.
The Parish Council holds a neutral position but is keen that that FF hears from everyone so we achieve a democratic result.
