News
A new report from the Internet Services Providers’ Association (ISPA) shows 69% of Brits would accept new poles being installed in exchange for better broadband
There is no two ways about it: telephone poles can be an eyesore.
Local news outlets in the UK publish a near constant stream of Not in My Back Yard (NIMBY)-related stories, in which residents decry the deployment of ugly connectivity infrastructure near their picaresque homes.
But this week a new survey from ISPA suggests that these concerns may be overblown when looking at the UK at large, with results suggesting that almost 70% of people would accept a new telephone pole being erected in their street if it delivered better broadband.
The survey, which included 2,563 respondents, found that:
Three quarters (75%) of British adults surveyed accept having telephone poles in their street if they deliver great broadband
Almost 7 in 10 (69%) surveyed would accept a new telephone pole in their street today if it delivered better broadband to their house and community
Less than 1 in 5 (17%) Brits surveyed would not accept a new telephone pole in their street today if it delivered better broadband to their house and community
The survey also showed that poles are perhaps less of an eyesore than previously thought: 37% of respondents said they ‘rarely or never telecoms poles when out and about’, while 19% say they notice them “frequently or always”.
Another factor to consider here is that providing broadband infrastructure via overhead poles, while undoubtedly uglier than burying the cables underground, is a markedly cheaper way to deploy this infrastructure.
When the respondents were asked if they would be willing to pay extra in order to have the network deployed underground, 61% said they would not be willing to pay extra to this end. Of those who would pay extra (30%), the average additional contribution suggested was £179 – less than a tenth of how much it would actually cost to hide cables underground in someone’s street per household.
“Poles have always been a historic feature of the UK telecommunications network and the new data clearly shows that the vast majority of the UK population is fine with that,” said ISPA’s chairman Steve Leighton.
“Our members will avoid erecting new poles but that is not always possible, and in those cases our members try their best to accommodate local concerns, However, the data clearly shows that the public does not want to pay more to hide cables underground.”
“We will continue to engage proactively with the Government to ensure that local concerns are reflected appropriately but we need to avoid a situation where objections from a minority lead to higher prices for everybody,” he added.
Naturally, it is in the interest of ISPA’s members to promote telephone poles as method of deploying broadband given that it is both faster and cheaper than digging below ground, but the timing of this study is worth noting too.
Last month the UK government called on network operators to limit telegraph pole deployments wherever possible to reduce impact to communities. Given that the government also has lofty goals of making gigabit-capable broadband available to 85% of UK premises by the end of 2025, threatening to put formal limitations on deployment methods no doubt caused a stir within the country’s broadband community.
However, it seemed the ISPA had anticipated this move by the government, conducting this survey back in February, likely to help convince the government that telegraph poles are less of a burden on communities than some complainants would have them believe.
Join the telecoms ecosystem in discussion at Connected North live in Manchester later this month!
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