In the week Elon Musk has become a trillionaire, it should be source of international embarrassment that the British state is investing in archaic digital communications systems. Up and down the countryside, hedgerows and field margins are being blighted with 20th century comms equipment. In the new age of LEO (Low Earth Orbit) satellites, Starlink and other wireless internet solutions, the British state – 30 years too late – is investing in the rollout of telegraph poles and thick black wires to mar our once green and pleasant land.

A line of planning notices on flimsy sticks appeared a couple of months ago along an unspoilt piece of Hampshire hedgerow warning severely of the imminent erection of a line of telegraph poles. The letter followed warning of local lane closures: “We’re expanding our full fibre broadband network across the South East, bringing fast and reliable connectively to local communities.” It was, insanely, dated May 2026, rather than May 1999. The kind folk of Trooli have finally decided that our quiet corner of Hampshire is deserving of the internet. The erection of such infrastructure seems as harebrained as digging canals in the age of rail. Telegraph poles in 2026, what on earth is going on?

When we moved into our hamlet nine years ago, neighbours warned of a single BT box at the bottom of the hill and a single underground wire that serviced the sparsely populated lanes with limited success. Streaming a film was impossible. Thankfully, a local farmer had set up a microwave internet service and we all installed mini dishes and bounced the signal off each other. Unless rain damped the central junction, it worked until Starlink came on stream in 2023. The majority of houses in the village now have Elon’s lifesaving rectangular screen attached to an upper window, roof or chimney. It has never failed. Yes it’s expensive (£70 a month) but I’ve no doubt it would be cheaper to supply individual rural households with Starlink than doing what the Government is doing instead: paying firms to install telegraph poles!

Are these old fashioned telegraph poles all that is available to poor diminished Britain because, as Dominic Cummings pointed out, “In 2020 we also bought LEO satellites. SWI laughed… Whitehall sold off the satellites!”? 

Why is Trooli not burying the unsightly black fibre wires to save the visual integrity of a beautiful lane? When I moaned to our local councillor, she replied:

Trooli has a contract to deliver fibre to the premise for rural areas, and many companies have installed poles rather than deal with the ecological harm of digging in cabling. Although Starlink is impressive, many people choose not to use it for ethical reasons.

A tiny bit of digging reveals that this decades-late rollout of soon to be redundant technology is thanks to the usual combination of spigot-like excessive guaranteed Government funding combined with cheapskate private equity. As part of a £5 billion scheme run by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology the Gigabit Broadband Voucher Scheme seems to explain things:

The majority of Project Gigabit delivery will be through major contracts, providing subsidies to suppliers to extend their gigabit-capable networks to premises that are unlikely to be reached otherwise.

These generous “subsidies to suppliers” have been leapt on by companies – often backed by private equity – such as Trooli, Gigaclear, Wildanet, Airband and many others, who then install visually unappealing and surely soon to be redundant infrastructure. Trooli is owned by Agnar UK Infrastructure, controlled by Vauban Infrastructure Partners. Just like so many insane areas of the British state – social care, social housing, SEND private contractors – the UK rural fibre sector attracts enormous amounts of private equity capital, mostly from European and US funds, because over the long-term government subsidies de-risk their investments and provide guaranteed income. While allowing the Government to tick a box saying that ‘reliable rural broadband’ has been achieved, there is no concern for how visually shoddy it is and indeed how the whole infrastructure will become obsolete in a world where LEO communications become widely adopted. I understand that BT whistleblower Mike Kiely shared details of how BT rinsed the government on its broadband rollout – will others one day come forward from these backward rural rollout firms?

I would vote for a party which pledges to improve rather than degrade our visual landscape, which prioritises the integrity of beauty and doesn’t spaff government funds all over cheapskate private equity-backed firms who put up telegraph poles in 2026 FFS.

Joanna Gray is a writer and confidence coach.