Street Cabinets, a fuss about nothing

There's been a lot of noise recently about the Government passing a new law that will speed-up street cabinet installs as Telecoms companies no longer need to go through the process of applying for planning permission (recently the London Borough of Chelsea and Kensington refused planning permission for around 96 or 108 application from BT to install new cabinets that would support its high speed fibre Infinity service).

Though planning was refused, BT do have a process whereby they can over-ride planning permission as they have what's know as 'code powers' (this name derives from when the UK had a Telecoms Act and having code powers granted the right to have telephone numbers as well as build street works, much of the old Telecoms Act regulatory environment has been surpassed by the Communications Act, but code powers has retained its name).

Any Communications Provider (as defined by the Communications Act) can apply to Ofcom for code powers which then gives them the right to dig roads, build street furniture etc.

So though the framework already exists, this just allows things to move slightly faster as BT and others can now just install standard sized street cabinets.