This page describes what is important for citizens to know when FTTH is rolled out in their street and possibly attached to their house or introduced into their apartment. A summary is also given of the existing obligations when you are planning to construct a new house or want to carry out a (considerable) renovation.
The rights and obligations of apartment building owners, syndics and property developers are explained in detail on the “owners of apartment buildings” page.
Deployment in your street?
Operators are entitled to install cables free of charge on façades of houses to roll out their networks. The operators’ right to use façades is explained in detail on this page.
Therefore, in principle, you, as owner, cannot refuse the installation itself (see Article 99 of the Act of 21 March 1991 to have a detailed description of the rights and obligations). The same goes for maintenance of those cables. This does not mean however that you are obliged to connect to the FTTH network (whereby the fibre is introduced into your home).
The right to install cables on façades applies to any operator and, in principle, cannot be refused unless, for example, the building is listed and specific rules apply. Thus, the mere fact that another operator has already rolled out fibre against façades cannot be used to refuse a new roll-out.
Nevertheless, the operators have to inform you beforehand about where and how the work will be carried out. Moreover, you have the right to object if you have not received enough information or if you do not agree to the proposed manner of execution. In that case the operator can try to reach an agreement after all.
In case of persistent disagreement, the operator has to send you a registered letter clearly describing the planned location and manner of execution of the work. You can object against this before the BIPT. The objection should be made within eight days following the receipt of the registered letter from the operator and should be motivated. The consequence is that the operator cannot continue with his plans until the BIPT has taken a decision.
This does not mean however, that afterwards, you will not be able to carry out any work anymore whereby the cabling has to be moved (however, the work must not purely aim at doing just that). To do so you have to inform the operator two months before the start of the work by registered letter. In that case the costs for moving the cables are borne by the operator.
Connection into your apartment
Every owner of an individual apartment has the right to install fibre (or have it installed) up to his apartment at his own expense, which means that the common areas of the apartment building may be used for that. The condition is that the installation constitutes an optimisation of the infrastructure and that the co-owners do not have to carry any financial burden.
Steps:
- 2 months before the start of the work send a registered letter to the other co-owners;
- Description of the work planned and a justification of the optimisation of the infrastructure planned;
- Co-owners can decide to carry out the work jointly. In that case work starts within 6 months following the receipt of the letter;
- Co-owners can object within 2 months following the receipt of the letter provided that:
- such infrastructure is already present in those common areas of the building, or;
- the work causes considerable damage as regards the appearance of the building or of the common areas, the use of the common areas, the hygiene or security thereof, or;
- there is no optimisation of the infrastructure, or;
- the work planned increases the financial burden.
Obligations in case of construction of new building and renovation
There is an obligation (the Broadband Cost Reduction Directive, see page about the BCRD for more information) to make buildings broadband-ready in case of new construction or major renovation works. This means that the building should be equipped with an access point and in-building physical infrastructure between the building’s access point and the network termination point of the home. There can be deviations from this obligation, depending on the choices made by the competent regional authorities (see the Flemish, Walloon and Brussels regulations).
This obligation especially regards multi-dwelling buildings, since in case of a standard house the network termination point is the same as the building’s access point. For more information about apartments, see the page regarding apartment buildings.