On Mon Jun 19, 2023 at 09:28:10AM +0000, Jethro Binks wrote: > I went a walkaround for work purposes with an OR engineer a while back in the > city centre, he was looking for the T-node which wasn't in the place > documented so had to pop a few lids. Every time there were other provider > fibres in there, and he tutted and grumbled that while everyone else was > "allowed to use" OR ducts, they were not permitted to use anyone else's. > This seemed a little odd to me at the time, since if everyone could use OR > ducts generally, there surely wouldn't be the need for so much digging. So > perhaps this grant is only in certain areas, like city centres.
What you describe is PIA (Passive Infrastructure Access) which is a product from Openreach. Openreach don't like providing this, but are required to do so under regulation (originally the requirement came from the EU). It's available to any service provider throughout the UK. The idea is that the ducts were installed using government money (from when BT was publicly owned), and thus should be made available. In the same way that govermnet funded builds by altnets (Gigabit Britain procrements, etc) have a clause in the contract which says that you have to make your infrastructure available to others. (So, actually BT/Openreach could use ducts installed by others, but they choose not to). PIA isn't a magic answer though - many of the BT/Openreach ducts are in a poor state of repair, or are congested. As a result altnets do use PIA quite extensively, but it doesn't stop them having to dig the roads up. Simon
