The Fibre Deadlock: Building Safety Regulations and the Digital Divide

We've been hearing a lot from INCA and ISPA about Building Safety Regulations causing delays to fibre deployment. What's actually happening out there?

It's become a massive issue for every single ISP.

Fibre deployment into high-risk multi-dwelling units—high-rise buildings—is having a real negative impact on progress. In fact, in London, fibre deployment into high-rise buildings has literally ground to a complete halt. We're not talking about a slowdown—it's stopped. And the number of premises affected keeps rising as these rules get applied to more and more buildings.

Can you break down what's going on with building safety and these high-risk buildings?

Right, so the Building Safety Act 2022 came into force in October 2023. It introduced all these new duties for developers, landlords, asset managers—basically everyone involved in these buildings. The High-Risk Building regime—or HRB regime—is at the heart of it, and it focuses on buildings that pose greater safety risks because of their height and how many people live in them.

An HRB is basically any building that's at least 18 metres tall or has seven or more storeys, and contains at least two residential units. The approval process is much more stringent now—developers have to submit detailed plans and safety documentation before construction even begins. If you're in property development, building management, construction—any of that—these regulations have completely changed what you're responsible for.

How did we get here?

The UK's been overhauling its entire building safety framework, especially for high-risk buildings, and it's all in response to Grenfell. The tragedy and the inquiry that followed—that's what drove all of this.

What's the Building Safety Regulator actually trying to achieve?

So, the BSR was set up under the Building Safety Act to completely overhaul how we manage safety in high-rise buildings across England. When it comes to regulating these High-Risk Buildings, they've got several key goals:

They want to raise safety standards for all buildings—but with a real focus on HRBs. They're regulating the design, construction, and occupation of HRBs to prevent another Grenfell. They're making sure there's accountability—building owners and managers, they call them "Accountable Persons," have to register HRBs and prove they're managing safety properly. And they want to improve professional competence across the board in design, construction, building control—all of it.

Where does fibre deployment fit into all this? How does it get caught up in building safety regulations?

This is where it gets frustrating. The deployment of fibre has been designated—and I think disproportionately—as resulting in a 'material alteration'. And once it's called a material alteration, boom, you're into the Gateway 2 approval requirement. That means you need a full building safety application.

The delays are mental. We're averaging 43 weeks nationally, 48 weeks in London. That's nearly a year just waiting for approval.

These delays and the knock-on costs for ISPs and freeholders—it means these buildings are just being left behind. And here's the thing—you've got this expensive fibre asset sitting right outside the building, but you can't provide service to anyone inside. That's another nail in the coffin for investment in fibre, isn't it?

Do you think this is proportionate? given what it's trying to prevent?

Look, I don't want to demean what happened at Grenfell—it was absolutely tragic. But the Grenfell disaster wasn't caused or affected by running cables in a safe and sensible manner. And actually, there are already new regulations that have been applied to cabling that, if followed, have genuinely improved safety. Things like fire clips to prevent cables collapsing, requirements that fire stopping must be done under proper competency schemes—that stuff's already in place.

So in my opinion, needing to apply for building safety approval that can take nearly a year just isn't proportionate to the actual risk when it comes to fibre deployment. I think a more proportionate regime could—and should—be managed competently by the freeholder under specific guidance from Building Safety.

What's at stake if we don't sort this out? What happens if we don't find a proportionate and viable solution?

We're looking at perpetuating or even deepening digital exclusion for people who own or live in flats. And many of the worst affected, the people most in need, they live in MDUs.

The new regulation for High-Risk Buildings is already a difficult, disproportionate hurdle to get over—and that's before you even factor in the cost of compliance. The viability question. ISPs don't have what they used to have anymore. Investors aren't falling over themselves to invest, interest rates aren't low, there aren't blocks to cherry pick. That's had a huge effect on perceived viability.

So any proportionate requirement for building safety also has to be viable, or we'll just go from one blocker—overzealous regulation—to another blocker—lack of viability and appetite.

And there's another thing worth noting here. The PSTN switch-off—the Public Switched Telephone Network switch-off—it's already been delayed once, and it's fast approaching now. 31st January 2027.

From a safety perspective, many of the most vulnerable people rely on PSTN for emergency alarms, telecare devices, things like that. We need fibre in these buildings to ensure continuity of those services.

Government and Ofcom have been encouraging providers to make sure there's continuity of service, especially for people who rely on telecare devices or don't have an internet connection. But by creating blockers to fibre with these BSR regulations, they're actually preventing providers from achieving that continuity. It's completely contradictory.

If the current approach isn't working, what are the alternatives?

One option would be to have the works covered by a competent person scheme. I think that's more proportionate for the actual risk we're talking about with fibre deployment. There are already 17 such schemes in operation. FIRAS's competent person scheme for passive fire protection—that's one option, if it could be added to the government's list of registered competent person schemes relating to building safety.

Another sensible and proportionate option would be empowering freeholders to manage the deployment of fibre into their buildings in a controlled manner, under guidance that's set out and approved by the Building Safety Regulator. That'd be relatively simple if the freeholder had the competency to manage it themselves, or the ability to manage a third party to oversee the process on their behalf.

Wait—under the current rules, does each ISP need to go through the same building safety approval process to wire the same building?

Yes! Under the current guidance, each internet service provider that wants to wire the building has to go through the same protracted approval process, managed by the freeholder or building owner, one after the other.

Let me point out the obvious here. The end result of having multiple operators deploying their networks means: multiple applications to Building Safety, repetitive wayleaves and legal agreements, loads of surveys and planning visits, multiple planning approvals, drilling holes over and over again, over-cabling, boxes everywhere, multiple contractors coming in and out, more truck rolls, more resident liaison, more record keeping for the 'golden thread', more project management for the freeholder, and significantly more repeated risk.

None of which are in line with Building Safety Regulation's main objectives, by the way.

That sounds mad. Is there a better way?

Yes—a shared, neutral, hosted full-fibre network that gets installed once and can be shared by multiple ISPs.

4Fibre is exactly that kind of network. We provide a "Do It Once, Do It Right" solution for multi-dwelling units. It's especially worth considering for High-Risk Buildings affected by these new Building Safety Regulations.

A shared neutral hosted full-fibre network gives you a building, freeholder, and resident-friendly collaborative approach. One agreement, one survey, one planning pack, and one BSR application—assuming we don't find a more proportionate solution that gets rid of the need for a BS application altogether.

You install it once, sign it off once with a golden thread, and it provides a cost-neutral, future-proof solution for freeholders and ISPs.

Can you give us a real-world example of where 4Fibre's overcome these building safety barriers in a high-risk building?

One of the best examples is the Charcroft Estate in Shepherds Bush—it's a Hammersmith and Fulham owned estate. Four towers, 20 storeys each, 100 flats in each tower. Roseford, Woodford, Shepherds, and Bush Court.

There was a major fire there in 2016, which made it a particularly sensitive site. You had resident demand for better broadband, but you also had the council who were really keen for a network that didn't affect the safety, aesthetics, or fabric of these buildings.

Another example is Rufford and Moreton on the Steyne Estate in Ealing. We deployed 4Fibre during a refurbishment of two 20-plus-storey tower blocks. Deploying during the refurbishment meant that any ISP who wants to service the building afterward doesn't need to break all the newly fire-sealed compartmentation in all the risers and to each front door.

In both cases, 4Fibre provided a safe deployment that ensured the safety and integrity of the building wasn't compromised, whilst minimising disruption. And that's by virtue of being installed just once, rather than having multiple operators wiring the building one after the other, which is the traditional alternative.

Is there anything else you think people should know about what's affecting fibre deployment?

Yeah, there is. There's this industry perception that the majority of buildings already have fibre and we're now entering a 'merger and acquisition phase'.

That perception is totally wrong, and it's very risky for the progress of fibre. Because people—including government, freeholders, safety regulators—might actually believe that's the case. It simply isn't.

I'd estimate there are probably one and a half million premises in London alone with poor broadband that merger and acquisition isn't going to help. At all.

Click here to read this article in the December issue of the Broadband Journal.