In cities of considerable size such as Madrid, it is common to see tangles of cables on the facades of buildings. These cables, installed mostly by telecommunications companies such as Movistar, Orange or Digi, They facilitate the installation of fiber optics in those buildings that lack internal pre-installation, that is, those built before current regulations.
Many times, the refusal of a neighbor to pass the cable through their façade, or simply curiosity about the deficient facilities, leads us to ask ourselves: Is it legal to run the cable through the facade without permission? We are going to explain what these types of facilities consist of and what are the main problems that arise on a day-to-day basis.
Is it necessary to ask for permission to install the fiber?
The Horizontal Property Law is clear in this regard in its Article 17.2:
The installation of common infrastructures for access to telecommunication services regulated in Royal Decree-Law 1/1998, of February 27, or the adaptation of existing ones, as well as the installation of systems, common or private, for the use of solar energy, or for the necessary infrastructures to access new collective energy supplies, may be agreed, at the request of any owner, by a third of the members of the community that represent, in turn, a third of the participation quotas.
The community will not be able to pass on the cost of the installation or adaptation of said common infrastructures, nor those derived from its conservation and subsequent maintenance, on those owners who have not expressly voted in the meeting in favor of the agreement. However, if they subsequently request access to telecommunications services or energy supplies, and this requires take advantage of new infrastructures or adaptations made to pre-existing ones, they may be authorized provided they pay the amount that would have corresponded to them, duly updated, applying the corresponding legal interest.
Therefore, to proceed with the first installation of the optical fiber, it will be enough that it be requested and approved by the Board of Owners by a third of the members of the community based on your participation fee.
However, we must bear in mind that this vote is carried out only in terms of the terms of the development and the costs of the installation, but not necessarily in relation to its authorization.
El Article 29 of the Telecommunications Law specifies that:
The operators will have law, under the terms of this chapter, to the occupation of private property when strictly necessary for the installation of the network to the extent provided in the submitted technical project and provided that there are no other technically or economically viable alternatives.
In addition, the facade of the building does not have the character of private property, but of a community element, and is linked to Article 34 of the same legal text:
The operators will be able to deploy cables and equipment that constitute public electronic communications networks through facades. and their associated resources, although for this they must use, as far as possible, the deployments, pipelines, facilities and equipment previously installed.
In this case, we focus on the first installation, since it is the most complicated. Following the instructions provided by Article 45 of the General Telecommunications Law, lThe telephone operator company must notify the community in writing of a descriptive report of the installation before carrying out any operation, and it will have a month to reply.
When can you refuse to install on the facade?
The communities of owners, may refuse to install the wiring on their façade if they argue with the installation plan, or in the following cases:
- Proving that no neighbor is interested in having the infrastructure for their use.
- If it is stated that within a maximum period of 90 days the telecommunications installation will be adapted or integrated
And if there are already previous installations?
In all those aerial channels where there are previous installations, that is to say, if, for example, Movistar has already deployed a fiber optic line and later other companies intend to do so, it will not be necessary to follow any of the mechanisms previously provided, since the teleoperating companies that deploy In second instance, may deploy without prior notice, as long as they take advantage of existing deployment avenues, that is to say, they do not produce any type of alteration of the pre-existing systems or create parallel lines.
The neighbor opposes the installation of fiber
When one of the neighbors opposes the installation of the fiber through its façade, as long as it is for private use, that is, a single-family home and not the façade of a community building, you can resort to legal means with the intention of to solve this problem.
If an owner unreasonably hinders the deployment of these types of facilities, the sanctions range between €30.001 and €300.000 depending on the seriousness of the facts.