Product Security and Telecommunications Infrastructure Bill (Second sitting)

Rebecca Long Bailey Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee Debates: 2nd sitting
Tuesday 15th March 2022 Public Bill Committees

[Sally-Ann Hart]

Q Thank you. I have one question for Mr Bartlett. We heard this morning from a colleague who is not here this afternoon that one possible reason for the increase in costs that perhaps Cellnex, for example, has met is that between the landowner and the operator, middlemen became involved. What are your thoughts on that?

Mark Bartlett: First of all, towercos have been around in the industry since the start. The BBC became National Grid became Crown wireless became Arqiva became Cellnex, and so on. This is not a 2017 phenomenon. Secondly, Cellnex itself has invested billions of pounds in the UK over the last couple of years and invests hundreds of millions of pounds a year, whether that is in connecting the Brighton main line or providing DAS, small cells, tower upgrades or new towers. To describe a huge enabler of connectivity across the UK as a middleman is, I think, a step too far. Fundamentally, we are an industry that is bringing connectivity to the whole of the UK; we are part of it, and we believe that these changes are needed to deliver it.

[Rebecca Long Bailey (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)]

Q The Bill will give the right to share and upgrade pre-2017 infrastructure. In relation to mobile coverage, to what extent will this dramatically improve the roll-out? The range of 5G, as I understand it, is very limited—is it 500 metres? Perhaps you could confirm that. Beyond that, it would be very helpful for us to understand to what extent telecoms providers are currently collaborating with one another to locate the best sites to situate new masts and to upgrade existing masts, to minimise the impact that communities will face. As we heard from various people this morning, many communities feel very powerless in this whole process, and it would be helpful to reassure them that they are being considered and there is a wider agenda that is being addressed by such companies.

Mark Bartlett: That is a good question. First of all, do we collaborate as an industry to use shared infrastructure? We are required to do so under planning laws. In fact, towercos’ reason for being is to create efficiencies and share infrastructure, to the benefit of the community. We are, through the planning process, not allowed to stick one tower next to another. Those sorts of things protect the community, but also make sure that we exploit the infrastructure that we have today to maximum effect.

Secondly, in terms of sharing upgrade rights, obviously we have existing towers. At the point at which we need to upgrade for 5G, often we need to put more equipment on those towers, so it is important that we are able to do that without having to negotiate higher costs under the old regime, and that we are able to do that very quickly. To Catherine’s point, where we do not get agreement to upgrade a tower, it simply means—the local community around that tower is much further than 500 metres; depending on which technology you use, it might be 500 metres, but I will not go into that, and one big tower serves many hundreds of people—that that tower does not get upgraded and the money is spent on a different tower in a different community.

The power of the individual to affect the outcomes of the community is very high in the process that we have today, especially where the legislation does not work. To be frank, that is why the changes are required. It is not necessarily to overcome some battle with a land agent. We are simply attempting to create this connectivity solution across the UK as fast as we possibly can, and having the simplicity—while remaining fair to the landlord—of legislation that works and an operational process that works is going to enable that.

Is there anything else you want to add, Juliette? If I may, I will refer to Juliette on the technical—

Juliette Wallace: I do not think there is anything particular to add, other than to say that the shared rural network absolutely relies on the ability both to roll out new sites to new areas that are total notspots at the moment and to roll out sharing and upgrade capability on existing sites. If we do not get the changes in this Bill, we are going to be seriously reduced in our ability to effectively roll out, share and upgrade those existing sites. There are some sites where currently we have no mechanic to be able to renew those agreements. As Mark said, the power of the individual to frustrate the roll-out of new technology or increase technology to a geographical area is huge currently.

[Rebecca Long Bailey]

Q To what extent are mobile providers sharing their proposed network coverage maps with local authorities, so that local authorities could try to match them with other providers, for example, where such collaboration has not been taking place?

Mark Bartlett: With respect, I am unable to answer that question as part of Speed Up Britain, because that is often commercially sensitive, but we can write to you. Mobile UK is part of Speed Up Britain, and they are the best people to ask. I will ask them to write to you directly to give you that clarity.

[Rebecca Long Bailey]

Q I have one final question on the poles issue. I am genuinely inquisitive about this. Is it the case that an area could potentially have a full-fibre broadband network under the road, as it were, but also have a pole network adding competition? If that is the case, are we at risk of creating rural deserts where there are fewer consumers and so less commercial incentive to do that, and overpopulated areas that have many options but a lot of infrastructure in their street scene? That is a question for Simon and Catherine.

Simon Holden: We architect what we call polygons, which basically go around our cities, and our objective is basically to cover every premise in the city polygon that we build. That is a commercial decision that we have made. We think that super-high-density fibre networks are the best way to cover a population and offer the best marketing opportunity to end customers. By the way, they allow you to do the densest 5G networks overlay on those.

In our architecture—which does not follow the Openreach architecture; it is our own—we use a series of ducts and poles in rings going around, and then run off coming from that. We plan, in our builds on our city polygons, not to have notspots. Sometimes we cannot go down a private road, because we need a wayleave and there is a process to go through to get that, but our policy is to try to cover as much as we possibly can. Typically, we cover 85% to 90% in what we call the first pass of the build, and then we start going back to do infill around that. At least where we are building today, we do not have that as a problem.

In rural areas, I think that will be affected by the BDUK process and the roll-out—we would like to participate in that—but our expectation is that we would be building and connecting from our cities all the way out to the deep rural areas, picking up the small towns and villages on the way. In those commuter towns, we would look to cover all those premises; if we are there building, we would rather just build it once and cover everyone. That is the best commercial opportunity that we see.

I do not think that we see what you are describing as a problem that we would be planning in to avoid; it would only be because we could not get particular wayleaves or particular access, a little bit as Catherine described, that we would end up trying to go around that. That is why this legislation will help us.

Catherine Colloms: If you think about the existing architecture—obviously, we have the existing architecture; we are still building new, but we are trying to reuse wherever we can, because that is cheaper and avoids digging up all your constituencies as we go—it is true to say that there is a greater proportion of underground ducting in urban areas, which this legislation, as drafted, would allow us to upgrade more easily than over the pole network or in multi-dwelling units. We have a much denser proportion of poles in suburban and rural areas, so at the moment, as the Bill is drafted, it is harder to upgrade rural areas than it might be to use the existing underground infrastructure, which is predominantly in urban areas, as you say.

[The Chair]

If there are no further questions from Members, on behalf of the Committee I thank the witnesses for their evidence. I hope I have not hurried you along too much.

Examination of Witness

Till Sommer gave evidence.