Neighbour blocking fibre access

[JayBee5]

My existing copper connection is rubbish and ehen it breaks down SKY won't fix it, they just say I can leave my contract. It comes to my house across a field with 2 telegraph poles. Some workmen were local today installing fibre so I asked them if I was going to get upgraded and they said they can't because they have to put two new poles in the field and the owner has refused.

Basically I am stuck aren't I? Because sooner or later this copper is going to fail for good and won't get fixed. Is there anything at all that I can do? Will other providers agree to fix it if I switch?

[TimmyBGood]

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@JayBee5 wrote:

 Will other providers agree to fix it if I switch?

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Assuming you are in the UK, if Openreach cannot obtain wayleave then no other Openreach ISP could provide broadband over fibre-optic cable.

For the current copper, none of them will have better options to get it fixed.

[JayBee5]

Thanks for the reply.

So what will happen with my copper connection? Will it sooner or later break and no longer be useable or repaired?

[TimmyBGood]

@JayBee5 

Openreach has an obligation to provide a minimum amount of connectivity to every UK addresse (shared with BT as the Universal Service Obligation provider) and does have statutory rights.

In their advice to landowners the way they put it is:

We do have some legal powers under the Electronics Communication Code that mean we can gain consent via the court to install apparatus on your land. But we don’t want to use these unless we absolutely have to, and we will make best endeavours to explore all alternative options available to us.

Basically I think that means while they might eventually have to go down that route in the event your connection fails entirely (or copper becomes obsolete), they won't do so for maintenance.

[JayBee5]

Thanks but how does that obligation work if SKY won't send them out to repair a fault? If my service goes down nobody comes to fix, one day it might not start working again.

[TimmyBGood]

@JayBee5 

An absolute outage isn't the same as an intermittent fault or an ongoing speed drop.

[JayBee5]

OK so I do have an ongoing speed drop - how'd I got about resolving it, seeing as though I can't speak to anyone?

Thank you.

[TimmyBGood]

@JayBee5 

Unfortunately that's probably not going to happen if Sky is offering to let you leave.  The Universal Service Obligation is 10Mbs, and only BT has to provide that.

[Chrisee]

@JayBee5 you do sound to be stuck between a rock and a hard place. Unfortunately where lines have to cross private line the land owner can effectively block any changes. While Openreach have code powers they are a sledge hammer to crack a nut and neither Sky or you can force them to use them.

Ideally you can talk to your neighbour and hope to persuade them to allow the new line to be run. It is the reason that wherever feasible utility services follow public highways.