Wayleave issues threaten to widen the digital divide, says Trenches Law co-founder Terry Daniell

The UK’s digital divide will only widen if work is not done to bridge the gap between landowners and operators, says Trenches Law co-founder Terry Daniell.

He tells Fibre Provider that the wayleave issues plaguing progressive altnets will put rural communities and high-rise premises at risk of being left behind by the ‘march to a gig.’

 “Unfortunately I do not think the UK's infrastructure providers are on track,” he said. “Towns and cities will be fine in terms of infrastructure but there are concerns that rural communities won’t have access to full fibre and therefore might get left behind.

“Without an agreement in place there won’t be a network upgrade and when that happens the digital divide becomes even greater and those hard-to-reach areas are more isolated.

“High-rise flats also require a greater level of attention. Landlords are becoming more appreciative of the benefits of fibre but when it comes to a block of flats there’s so much more that goes into it.

“It’s our responsibility as an industry to come together and stop these parts of the UK from being left behind. This begins by improving the relationship between landowners and operators and the way to do that is to continue educating on the topic of wayleave.”

Despite 20-30 per cent of premises requiring an agreement for fibre providers to begin work some altnets are still unaware of the complex process which can grind rollouts to a halt.

Daniell continues: “When wayleaves are overlooked in the planning process, costs can soon mount up – from around £950 in surveyor rates and nearly £1,500 per wayleave in traditional law firms fees. Add in the expense and resource constraints that come with planning and there’s soon going to be a hefty bill that wasn’t even part of the original plans.

“That’s why we created an automation tool to roll-out tens of thousands more wayleaves each week to help our sector reduce lead times and costs and improve efficiency.”

In December amendments made to the Electronic Communications Code (ECC) were designed to simplify this process but did not go far enough according to Daniell.

“Amendments to the ECC through the Product Security and Telecommunications Infrastructure Bill show that the UK Government wants to legislate,” he said.

“But there is still some way to go in helping altnets to remove barriers. While we welcome the Government’s plans to legislate, we’d also like them to delve a little deeper in how they will strategically help to provide hyper-speed broadband on a nationwide level.”

Spurred by the growing demand for wayleave counsel by the UK altnet community the telecoms law firm is looking to notch up a second consecutive year of 200% revenue growth.

Daniell said: “This year is all about continued expansion. We will add 30 more employees and open a new site in Yorkshire. We are committed to driving efficiency and will leverage our automation solution which is able to handle tens of thousands more wayleaves each week.

“While things are developing one of the areas we’re really excited to roll-out relates to the Telecoms Security Act and how we’re collaborating with automated software firm PacketFront to assist telecoms operators with their audits.”

Daniell has more than 25 years’ hands-on, commercial and management experience, beginning his career as an outside broadcast engineer for BT and progressing to managing the service relationships for some of its largest customers.

More recently Daniell specialised in the wholesale sales channel at Virgin Media where he was responsible for numerous relationships within the reseller, carrier and mobile sectors – including its biggest wholesale customer.

He said: “Having truly lived and breathed this industry for most of my working life – and with a genuine passion for keeping abreast of all-things-technology – as a co-founder of Trenches Law I now set the agenda for our senior leadership team. I play a key role in the delivery of clients’ projects, no matter how complex, as well as the continued progression of our specialist business.”