DELIvERING THE fULL-fIbRE vISIONCHARLES THOMAS

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CHARLESTHOMAS Why connectivityis key

Improving connectivity across the UK is acomplex and long-term challenge. Thisinvolves deploying full-fibre accessnetworks to deliver significantly fasterspeeds (e.g. multi-Gigabit), as well as amuch more reliable service. The old legacycopper network will gradually be switchedoff although this will be a long andcomplicated process.

Government initiativesThe Prime Minister’s recent optimism andsupport for meeting the connectivitychallenge is welcome, as indeed is SajidJavid’s pledge for £5bn of investment tosupport the rollout of full-fibre unveiled atthe Conservative Party conference at theend of September 2019. However, deliveringon this promise will need the Government to

support the Electronic Communication Codelegislation which is designed to make iteasier for network operators to install andmaintain apparatus such as phone masts,fibre exchanges and cabinets on public andprivate land - and ensure the principles areput into action to drive the rollout of full-fibreand 5G and fill in the gaps to rural ‘NotSpots’ areas – see the side panel.

The new Code goes some way to providingclarity and structure for mobile and fixed lineoperators regarding wayleaves but not nearlyenough. There is still a huge amount ofambiguity and it is certainly open tointerpretation. Here at Cluttons we see allmanner of financial requests which arewholly inappropriate and lead to unnecessarydelays which the UK just can’t afford.

The telecoms industry was quick to respondto Government by publishing an open letterthat welcomed the PM’s focus on improvingdigital connectivity and promised to rise tothe challenge whilst also demanding of theGovernment that it would fully commit togiving the industry the tools to deliverfuture-proof connections across the UK.

The letter set out four areas for urgentattention before significant progress couldbe made. This included reforms to buildingregulations and the tax on fibre cables,prioritising investment in digital andengineering skills, and allowingtelecommunications providers access toproperties when landlords are notcollaborating as effectively as they should.On this latter point, recent figures publishedby Openreach suggest that, in the City ofLondon alone, it was unable to gain consentfrom owners of 848 high-rise buildingscontaining 9941 residential or businesspremises. This is down to difficulties in

DELIVERING THEFULL-FIBRE VISIONConnectivity brings us many benefits – it has shaken up our lives and transformed our place of workand home. It has become the key to unlocking greater efficiencies, flexibility, streamlining processesand ensuring we can go about our daily lives anywhere, anytime. It also underpins our commercialprosperity. Research from property consultancy and adviser Cluttons shows a clear link betweengood connectivity, business performance and employee satisfaction. For example, a well-connectedoffice means a better performing business and employees who are more satisfied in their roles. Thisin turn leads to increased productivity and enables more flexible working practices. Charles Thomas,Cluttons’ Head of Fibre Networks, explains.

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securing wayleave agreements which giveOpenreach the right to enter apartments oroffice blocks.

The letter also addressed the issue of fundingand described the £3 to 5bn in public fundsas ‘a good start’ but wanted the regulatorylandscape to be addressed, pointing to theamount of red tape – including fibre tax andwayleaves access – and the challenge ofnew-build properties that hit the marketwithout being fibre-ready.

Cluttons’ own research conducted earlierthis year highlights the scale of thechallenge. It is clear that significant digitalconnectivity gaps across the UK prevail.  forexample, in London and the South East,18% of commercial property landlords saidbroadband performance does not meet theirneeds. Occupiers of commercial propertyecho this point.

Streamlining the processCluttons is one of the few propertyconsultancies in the UK offering a servicethat focuses on one simple statement“when the fibre industry meets the propertyindustry”. Cluttons infrastructure team hasthe experience in both the fibre and theproperty sectors to translate each other’sneeds, ensuring a smooth path to the endgoal. The Cluttons team has identified twoareas that require urgent attention if fibreproviders and the Government are to reachtheir target to achieve full-fibre by 2025:• Wayleaves.• Acquisition, design and planning of fibre

exchanges (mini data centres).

Cluttons has a dedicated unit aimed atdelivering these two critical activities.Wayleave agreements are a crucial part ofputting the infrastructure in place becausethey give permission to providers to installand maintain apparatus on privately-ownedland or buildings, such as offices andapartment blocks. However, achieving asigned wayleave poses several challengesbecause of the large number and variety ofstakeholders involved in the process, thelimited regulatory reporting and delays dueto the landlords not signing the wayleave. Itcan be frustrating and unnecessarily slow.

One of the ways this is being addressed isthrough the partnership Cluttons hasestablished with bT to help streamline theprocess and more effectively navigate thered tape by analysing wayleaveimpediments and failures to understand thekey issues which result in delays. Thisprocess has three parts:• A Managed Wayleave service has been

developed. This offers a single point ofcontact which means that serviceproviders no longer have to deal with anoverwhelming number of stakeholders,for example Landlords, surveyors,solicitors and tenants.

• Any specific wayleave is managed fromcradle to grave, tracking the wayleavelifecycle through a dedicated online portalto streamline and enhance the service.This includes data validationmanagement to ensure the quality andconsistency of the data within mandatorywayleave templates, proactiveintervention management, wayleavetracking through a dedicated workflowmanagement system and regularmanagement of all interaction withstakeholders, keeping everyone informedat the touch of a button.

• All delays are analysed and Cluttonsidentifies resolutions using existingproperty management knowledge andtools, improving efficiency and ultimatelycutting time and costs. Clearly, anythingthat can be done to reduce thecomplexity in the wayleave process willspeed up improvements in the UK’sdigital infrastructure.

Due to this unique partnership, bT saw a57% reduction in time saved on theaverage wayleave, failure rates or cancelledwayleaves down from 11.5% to 1% and a70% reduction in customer delays. Cluttons’ research has clearly demonstratedthat where landlords have invested toimprove connectivity, most have been ableto achieve increases in rents, reflecting thevalue of well-connected office buildings.The majority have also been able to reducevoids, or periods of vacancy.

When it comes to acquiring planningconsents and wayleaves for data centres orfibre exchanges, Cluttons takes thetraditional commercial agency stream andthe telecoms acquisition stream andcombines them into one; the team acquiring

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How does the UK ensure that rural areas are not left behind?

There is a gap in internet adoption between rural and city areas and a lack ofinfrastructure is responsible in many cases for this division. However, there aredevelopments in place to ensure there are a range of technologies that can deliver nextgeneration connectivity.

for example, following an agreement between the Government and the Church ofEngland, it has been announced that church spires across the UK will be used toincrease digital connectivity across rural areas. Over 65% of Anglian Churches and 66%of parishes in England are in rural areas but, being at the centre of their localcommunities, they will be able to strategically address connectivity and coverageissues. This new digital connectivity will assist to deliver Government’s commitment toinfrastructure being at the heart of the Digital Strategy to support britain’s world-leadingdigital economy.

The UK Government Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport has alsoannounced the 5G Rural Integrated Testbed, for rural use cases in Monmouthshire,Cumbria, Northumberland, North Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, Inverness-shire and Perthshire.Led by small and medium enterprises, the use cases will test 5G across a range ofapplications, including smart farming with drones, using Inernet of Things to improvehealthcare in homes, increasing manufacturing efficiency and maximising the futurebenefits of autonomous vehicles.

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sites has the expert knowledge in bothremits enabling it anticipate any futureobstacles, for example, flood risks, ransomstrip negotiations, environmental impactassessments, contamination reports, and soon, and manage them ahead of time.

Delivering an alternative fibre networkCityfibre is one of the challenger firmscompeting with the likes of Openreach andvirgin Media to rollout wholesale full-fibrenetwork infrastructure. With major fibreinfrastructure projects across 50+ townsand cities throughout the UK, it provides aportfolio of active and dark fibre services toits customers.

Cityfibre is making significant investmentsin a number of cities across the UK andrapidly expanding the number of homes andbusinesses which have access to full-fibre.It is know for its Gigabit speeds, nearunlimited bandwidth and consistentreliability. Cityfibre has recently partneredwith vodafone to bring Gigabit-capable full-fibre broadband to up to one million UKhomes and businesses by 2021 and istargeting five million by 2025. Thiscommitment has been reinforced by a£2.5bn investment programme whichidentifies 37 towns and cities which areprimed for fibre-to-the-premise expansion.

In July, it announced a further 14 townsand cities are being planned and mobilisedfor full-fibre deployment. They are set tojoin its ‘Gigabit City Club’, alongside the 12cities that are part of Cityfibre’s £2.5bninvestment plan to bring competitive full-fibre infrastructure to at least five millionhomes, more than 20% of the UK market.The 14 cities announced are batley,bradford, Derby, Dewsbury, Doncaster,Inverness, Ipswich, Leicester, Lowestoft,Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Rotherham, Slough,Swindon and Worthing. Cityfibre willcontinue to work closely with each localauthority to facilitate and accelerate therollouts and to determine the sequence oftowns and cities deployed. On completion,the total economic impact of full-fibre inthese locations alone could exceed£16.3bn, creating over 115,000 indirectjobs.

Cityfibre has commenced network designand is already investing in each location,extending its existing full-fibre spineinfrastructure serving schools, hospitals andcouncil offices, to reach nearly every homeand business. Each Gigabit City design willinclude enough fibre capacity to serve thebandwidth demands of all market verticalsfar into the future. The networks, which aredesigned to be ready for 5G small celldensification, also provide a platform torealise Smart City ambitions.

This announcement adds over one millionhomes and businesses to the million alreadycovered by the 12 Gigabit Cities previouslyannounced. Construction is now underwayin ten of those cities, and in five of themGigabit-capable broadband services are liveand on sale to customers.

With thousands of construction engineersand operatives required to roll out itsnetworks at pace, Cityfibre is investing inresourcing programmes and trainingcentres as well as working closely withgovernment to ensure its contractors havethe necessary workforce to support thisacceleration. Cityfibre estimates that over3,250 construction jobs will be created in itsdeployment to the two million homesidentified so far.

Cluttons has recently acquired 27 datacentres on behalf of Cityfibre across 12towns and cities facilitating the rollout offull-fibre networks. This is an involved andchallenging project engaging Landlords andplanning authorities to gain the requiredconsents, a process that would certainlybenefit from Government intervention.Nevertheless, Cluttons maintains a spotlessplanning record and is well on the way todelivering a further 30 exchanges over thecoming 6 to 12 months.

AUTHOR’S CONCLUSIONS

We have heard a great deal about the UK’spoor connectivity. Cluttons’ research showsthat there is still some way to go before theconnectivity gap is closed and we can provideall UK businesses and homes with digitalperformance which outperforms expectations

and competes on the global stage.

The Government and Ofcom need to takenote of what the likes Cityfibre, Gigaclear andG-Networks are already doing across bothrural and urban scenes. We are also seeingcollaborative initiatives such as the proposedShared Rural Network which involves all fourmajor mobile operators and will enable themto access each other’s existing telecomsinfrastructure in areas of the UK where thereis only partial mobile network coveragecurrently to combat ‘not spots’.

However, much more needs to be done toencourage private investment in this sectorwith clarification of regulations around ‘overbuild’ of infrastructure, ensuring a healthycompetitive environment and claritysurrounding fibre-to-the-Home versusfibre-to-the-Cabinet advertising. Anythingthe Government can do to reduce costs andlower barriers to deployment and improvethe business will be welcome if we want toswitch off the copper network earlier thanplanned.

In truth, we don’t yet know what newtechnologies are around the corner andexactly how they will transform our lives.but they will happen and they will have ahuge impact when they become a reality –think WhatsApp and the Internet of Things.One thing is for certain, delivering worldclass connectivity will require collaborationacross all parties, including the propertysector if buildings are to live up to the fullpotential the next generation of technologyoffers.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Charles Thomas is headof fibre networks atCluttons, the property consultancy andmarket-leading adviser to the largest mobileoperators and fixed-line providers. Charlesspecialises in estate management, datacentre acquisition and wayleave delivery.Through its network of offices, Cluttonsoffers a very wide range of professionalproperty management, agency andconsultancy services across bothcommercial and residential sectors.

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