Original article ISPreview UK:
The government has rejected an Openreach (BT) supported amendment to the new Renters’ Rights Bill (RRB) for England, which aimed to make it easier to deploy gigabit broadband into large residential buildings (blocks of flats / apartments) where deployment has been unreasonably refused or landlords cannot be contacted. But they claim to be “actively working” on a solution.
Just to recap. Large residential buildings (Multi-Dwelling Units) still require broadband operators to secure the permission of freeholders before they can deploy new Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband lines. But this can become tedious when landlords refuse access, fail to respond to a request, or where it’s unclear who the freeholder for a building actually is.
NOTE: At present over 86% of UK premises can already access a gigabit broadband network and the government are aiming for “nationwide” (c.99%) coverage by 2030.
Openreach has previously estimated that there are approximately 1,040,000 premises in such buildings across the country for which this issue applies and over 780,000 of those are said to be “at risk of no coverage from us or any other provider“. Some 600,000 flats and apartments in London alone are believed to be impacted by this.
The operator often already has an existing copper-based broadband (ADSL, FTTC etc.) network in such buildings, but the related wayleave (access) agreement only allows them to enter the property in order to maintain or upgrade that specific service (i.e. they’d need to secure a new agreement if they wanted to deploy FTTP). Suffice to say that they’ve spent quite a long time arguing for a change to the rules (example).
The new RRB does not, by default, include any measures to tackle this problem, but two associated amendments had been proposed by Baroness Janke to resolve it (here). However, some alternative networks have long warned that they don’t want to see a situation where Openreach is granted special access, which they say could leave them at a competitive disadvantage (the amendments were broad and didn’t appear to be Openreach specific).
Similarly, property owners also have concerns that must be balanced in all this (i.e. insurance, damage to property, security, safety [e.g. fire, asbestos] and other liabilities etc.), which is because upgrading copper lines to fibre in MDUs is often a bit more involved than it may seem (it’s not always minor work) and not everybody may want that.
Equally, some ministers and peers have raised concerns that the changes might allow network operators to force their installation costs onto property owners, which would be counterproductive. Not to mention any conflicts with pre-existing exclusivity agreements etc.
Suffice to say, network operators and the government are walking a bit of a tightrope in terms of the rights of freeholders and leaseholders, while at the same time there still appears to be some internal industry disagreement over the best approach. Many alternative networks seem to want a more voluntary approach, but such things have not been particularly successful in the past.
Gov Rejects RRB Amendments
The amendments came up for debate in the House of Lords yesterday afternoon as part of the committee stage. Many of the above points were raised, both for and against the changes, but the government – represented by Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Labour) – ultimately chose to reject the proposed changes.
However, Baroness Taylor did state that part of this stemmed from the fact that they were in the process of “actively considering options to identify what would be the best interventions to facilitate gigabit broadband deployment in privately owned multiple dwelling units“, although no details were provided.
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage said:
“These amendments are intended to reduce delays in deploying broadband infrastructure improvements in rented properties. However, the Government are aware that issues with the speed of deployment in urban areas have related to multiple dwelling units in particular, such as blocks of flats, rather than the rental sector in general. The amendments may not address the problem of slow deployment in multiple dwelling units. For example, leasehold flats in multiple dwelling units that are not rented, which outnumber rented flats within those units, would not be covered by these amendments. Further, leasehold flats in multiple dwelling units that are rented would not necessarily benefit from the right to request fibre to the premises because of the requirement for superior landlord agreement.
We therefore believe that further consideration of how such an intervention should be targeted is required before any intervention is undertaken. We understand that network operators have strongly differing views on whether and how government should intervene here — points mentioned by the noble Lords, Lord Best and Lord Cromwell — and they have concerns that any such intervention could have unintended consequences. In particular, there are concerns that intervention without proper consideration may impact the telecoms network operator market in such a way that could harm competition and investment and, in fact, slow down deployment rather than speed it up.
Given these matters, we do not consider the amendments to be appropriate. However, I assure noble Lords that that is not to say the Government are turning a blind eye to the issue. We recognise that more could be done to ensure that residents living in blocks of flats are not left behind as the rollout of gigabit broadband continues at pace across the UK. We are receiving positive responses to our work with local authorities and housing associations to facilitate deployment in social housing multiple dwelling units. Officials are also actively considering options to identify what would be the best interventions to facilitate gigabit broadband deployment in privately owned multiple dwelling units. We are actively working on that.
On the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, and the noble Earl, Lord Errol, about the cost to landlords and the potential costs in rural areas of implementing this, I do not have an answer. I will talk to my colleagues in DSIT and come back to the noble Lords on those important points.
I hope that my words provide reassurance to the noble Baroness that the Government are seriously considering what we consider to be a very important issue. I therefore ask that the noble Baroness withdraw her amendments.”
In response, Baroness Janke (LD) said she was “very interested” to hear more about how the Government will move forward on this and called for more information to be shared on “what developments are taking place and by when“. The government will now need to present those answers in order to avoid an 11th hour revival of the amendment(s), which did generally appear to enjoy a modest degree of support in the house.
However, at this stage, it’s unclear whether the government are considering their own changes to the RRB as part of this process or will adopt more of a voluntary approach. As we’ve said above, history under the previous government has tended to show that voluntary approaches (without any teeth) often end up being ineffective / ignored by many of those they target, but there’s also no denying that this is a tricky issue to resolve.
