From: Deon Louw
Sent: 22 March 2018 11:04 AM
To: Esther Groenewald;
Cc: Geraldine Mettler; Shireen De Visser; Jan De Villiers; Nombulelo Zwane; Dries Vantaak; Johan Fullard; Tyrone King
Subject: RE: [EX] Re: Veselkabel instsallering in Die Boord
Dear All,
Please note that the Municipality cannot control the fibre optic installers other to indicate where they may put cables and to enforce that the area is clean and all damage has been seen to. The Communications legislation allows anyone with a licence to install such cables to do so in any street or side of street that they wish to do so. There was a Constitutional Court Cases where this “freedom” of Fibre Optic Installers where attempted to reign in. This case institute by Tshwane was lost by the municipality, but in this case the minority ruling was that a municipality may not prohibit but it may regulate in this case.
Extract from ruling:
Section 22 of the Act lists a number of rights to which the licence-holder, like Link Africa (Pty) Limited (Link Africa), is entitled. It was the desire on the part of Link Africa to exercise those rights on the property of the City of Tshwane Metropolitan Municipality (City) which triggered these proceedings. The bone of contention was whether Link Africa needed to obtain consent from the City before it could exercise those rights. Litigation was resorted to when agreement on the issue eluded the parties.
The City of Tshwane lost this case and the Fibre Optic Contractor was allowed to proceed which meant that a the Contractor did not need the consent of a municipality to exercise its rights to install a fibre optics cable.
A second High Court Case was recently lodge by a Fibre Optic Installer against Cape Town at which time Cape Town won and where the ruling (December 2017) that municipalities may regulate was upheld.
From the date of the ruling of this court case Stellenbosch Municipality instituted deposits for wayleaves and enforced that no installation may take place without a proper wayleave. This policy has now only been in place for the last two months. To this end a meeting was held with the Fibre Optic installer and it was ruled that in future no further Fibre Optic cables will be installed on sidewalks but would be instilled utilising the so-called micro trenching technique where a small trench with a width of about 10cm be dug right next to the curb stone but at street level.
The project in Die Boord has however been launched prior to the policy change. The Fibre Optic Installer has however committed that he would endeavour to change to the Micro trenching Technique as soon as practically possible. We will however do our best to ensure that all damage is repaired. Therefore, from this project onwards, no further optic fibre may be installed without obtaining a wayleave which will indicate in what position within the road reserve a installer may install cables.