Laying my Own Fibre Across a Road

Hi All

My wife and I have purchased a house opposite my parents property. We want to use their fibre connection and whilst the plan at the moment is to use a Ubiquiti Building Bridge to connect the buildings together, I'd much prefer a direct fibre link between the buildings. I can put our own poles up to run a fibre cable over a road, but wondered if there's any regulations for running a cable over a road (in a hamlet with 5 houses and very little traffic) or whether I can just do this? I understand Openreach will connect the sites but I don't want to pay any ongoing fees to effectively hang a cable a mere tens of meters between existing poles!

Thanks all!

No direct knowledge, but I think you would need the permission of the highway authority and planning permission. Is there any reason you can't get a fibre connection of your own? Or why you specifically need such a connection?

Anything you could do with a private fibre you could do over the public internet, unless you are gong solo to the degree that you are developing your own communication protocols.

Just my thoughts

Unless the road and foot paths between the two properties are owned by you or your parent I would say its a big no no. We all can't start lashing cables over the road to other properties just because we want too regardless of how busy the road is. If you must have a connection between the two properties then the best option is to use a wireless bridge as you stated in your post.

Best to keep within the law. The local highways authority will make you take it down, or could go and fine you if you don’t tell them and apply to do it properly, according to their rules and regs.

Also from a public liability angle, make sure your insurance is aware etc.

NO ... unless you want to spend thousands with the highways authority, purchase poles (not cheap) and have the ongoing public liability insurance.

Plus, read the Ts&Cs of the ISP and you may well find that sharing between properties breaches them.


If you do decide to chance it and put an RF link in, why the UBB? £500

You could use the NS5AC or NS5ACLoco and get good data rates at way less cost.

In reply to a post by MHC:

poles (not cheap)

£208.72 on ebay https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/204554016154?toolid=20006... And these are new, in their original retail wrapping, according to the listing.

Edited by DFScale (Mon 17-Feb-25 13:47:29)

You would require a Licence for projections over a highway (England & Wales )

https://www.gov.uk/find-licences/licence-projection-...

Fees are @ £600 per annum , that differs by authority , plus insurance and all other costs as others have mentioned.

Fines for non compliance are painful.

Much cheaper to get your own ISP contract.

A wireless bridge will link up at a symmetric gig and you will have none of the complications involved with trying to run a wire between them. If the road underneath is a public highway then you almost certainly don't have enough money to spend on this, especially when the alternative is the cost of an FTTP service for your house.

The least hassle is a ready-paired 60GHz short radio link, which will give you oodles of bandwidth and be immune to other unlicensed WiFi. I’d look to MikroTik or Uniquiti for solutions.

Just then boils down to T&Cs of your ISP agreement…

In reply to a post by AndreiV:

You would require a Licence for projections over a highway (England & Wales )

https://www.gov.uk/find-licences/licence-projection-...

Fees are @ £600 per annum , that differs by authority , plus insurance and all other costs as others have mentioned.

Fines for non compliance are painful.

Much cheaper to get your own ISP contract.

I'm not sure that's necessarily true / applicable for the OP. Seems to indicate larger structures such as bridges.

Suggest if the OP really wants to explore this, get more information etc. they look up the relevant local Highways Authority from:

https://www.findmystreet.co.uk

Then check with them what the correct application process is. I believe cables over roads falls under Section 178 of the Highways Act.