Summary

  • Ofcom’s 3 September proposal remains “Pending Statement (Closed)” after consultation responses closed on 5 October 2026; the published proposal is not a final direction.
  • The application seeks a legal operating surface over a broad class of UK network and infrastructure provision. Its value depends on the named holder, actual scope, sharing in practice and a credible liability backstop.

A cable route is not only a line on an engineering map. It is also a chain of permissions: street works, access agreements, rights to install and maintain apparatus, and procedures for resolving a failed land negotiation. Ofcom’s proposal concerning EXA Infrastructure UK Limited sits on that legal layer. It should be read as an application for a framework that could make network provision more practicable—not as evidence of a new route, a completed grant or an immediate change to landowner rights.

The distinction matters because “Code powers” sound like a blanket permission. They are not. The Electronic Communications Code, in Schedule 3A to the Communications Act 2003, sets out rights available to a person to whom Ofcom applies the Code by direction. Among them are rights relating to installing, keeping, inspecting, maintaining, operating and sharing apparatus. A person with those powers may carry out certain works on public streets without a specific street-works licence and may benefit from specified permitted-development treatment.

If negotiations over private land fail, the operator may apply to a court for an agreement conferring a Code right or binding an owner or occupier. That is a route to a legal process, not automatic entry to any parcel.

Ofcom published its proposal on 3 September 2026, with consultation closing on 5 October. Its page still labels the case “Pending Statement (Closed)”. The regulator says it will consider responses before deciding whether to issue a direction. The distinction between a consultation proposal and a final direction is operational: counterparties should not treat the proposed powers as already effective. The live register of granted powers, rather than a draft instrument with bracketed post-consultation wording, is the relevant confirmation of a completed decision.

The applicant is EXA Infrastructure UK Limited, a named legal person. The application asks for Code powers in relation to an electronic communications network and a system of infrastructure it makes, or proposes to make, available to other network providers. It describes continuing operation of existing EXA Group assets, possible assumption of responsibility for assets held elsewhere in the group, and potential future UK deployment. The application also cites group-level scale—155,000 kilometres across 37 countries and more than 500 optical points of presence.

Those figures describe the group’s asserted network, not the UK footprint of the applicant. They cannot be used as a proxy for British route length, premises passed or assets legally held by this company.

The statutory assessment gives decision-makers four connected questions under section 107(4) of the 2003 Act: the public benefit of the relevant network or infrastructure system; whether it is practicable without Code powers; the need to encourage apparatus sharing; and whether the applicant can meet liabilities arising from application of the Code and related conduct. Ofcom’s published reasoning says the proposed provision has potential public benefit, accepts that it would not be practicable without the powers as described, and considers a grant would facilitate sharing.

These are regulator judgments about the application—not proof that every proposed investment will be made or every third-party request will be served on commercial terms.

On liability, the public document says the applicant supplied information, a director confirmed that sufficient funds would be made available if and when needed, and Ofcom considered the information sufficient. The paper does not disclose an amount or a funding instrument. That absence is a limit on what the public can evaluate; it is not evidence that no certificate or supporting material was provided. If the direction is made, the distinction between a legal undertaking, funds actually available, and the ability to meet a specific claim will remain relevant to landowners and counterparties.

Ofcom describes the expected overall impact as likely low and says refusing the request could significantly affect the practicability of the applicant’s provision. That is a forecast within the regulator’s assessment. It is not a measured post-grant result, nor does it establish that current services are at risk. The proposed direction would apply across the UK to the categories of network and infrastructure described in the notice. Its breadth makes the precise legal holder and the relation between the company and any group assets especially important.

A group chart, a service brand and the entity named in a statutory direction are not interchangeable.

For operators buying capacity, the useful question is not whether Code powers are intrinsically good. It is whether a grant changes the time, cost or continuity of a particular route—and whether any resulting infrastructure is genuinely available to other providers. That requires later evidence: the final direction and its conditions; the assets and activities falling within scope; how sharing requests are handled; and whether deployment or access outcomes can be observed. A right to apply, a commitment to make infrastructure available and an actual wholesale offer are three different things.

Landowners need the same precision, without exaggerated fears or casual reassurance. The Code creates important rights and a court process, but a direction does not erase statutory boundaries, procedural requirements, compensation rules or the need to identify the relevant apparatus and land. People negotiating over a site should check the actual rights asserted and obtain advice for their circumstances rather than infer an outcome from the consultation headline.

The decision to watch is therefore narrow but consequential: does Ofcom issue a direction to this company, and does the final instrument define the holder, scope, liability arrangements and sharing purpose clearly? If granted, the public record should let stakeholders distinguish legal authority from group-wide ambition. If refused or narrowed, the application still exposes the operating frictions that the applicant says make its plans impracticable. Until the final statement and instrument appear, neither scenario is settled.

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