Code Operators vs Non-Code Operators

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What is a Code operator?

A Code operator is a telecoms company that has been granted rights under the Electronic Communications Code, which is Schedule 3A to the Communications Act 2003, inserted in its current form by the Digital Economy Act 2017. These rights are granted by Ofcom and give the operator statutory powers to install and maintain electronic communications equipment on land and in buildings. Major operators like Openreach, Virgin Media O2, and most established ISPs hold Code rights. Many alternative network operators (altnets) also hold Code rights.

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Code rights vs contractual rights

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What does this mean in practice?

For landlords: Code operators have a statutory right to request access to your building. You are not obligated to agree to their specific terms, but you must engage in good faith. If you refuse entirely, the operator can apply to the Upper Tribunal to impose an agreement. For operators: If you hold Code rights, landlords must engage with your request. Wayline makes that engagement structured: the landlord receives your request instantly, reviews your RAMS with AI assistance, and can respond on their own terms.

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What a Code operator can require, and what a landlord can refuse

Code status is often read as a right to install, which is not what it is. The distinction matters because it is the difference between a negotiation with a backstop and no negotiation at all. What Code rights are. Statutory rights to install and maintain electronic communications apparatus on land and in buildings. They attach to the operator, not to any particular building. How they are exercised. Through an agreement. A Code operator with rights over the whole country still needs an agreement covering your building before it can install anything in it. Code rights do not confer entry. What happens if there is no agreement. Where the parties cannot reach one, the operator can apply to the Upper Tribunal to have an agreement imposed. That is the backstop, and it is a process rather than a formality: it takes time, it costs both sides, and the Tribunal decides the terms. So a landlord can refuse a particular set of terms, and negotiate fees, access hours, insurance minimums and the rest, and the statutory position is unchanged. What a landlord cannot do without consequence is refuse to engage at all, because that is the case the Tribunal route exists for.

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The 2021 Act and Part 4A

The Telecommunications Infrastructure (Leasehold Property) Act 2021 received royal assent on 15 March 2021 and inserted Part 4A into the Code. Part 4A addresses one narrow and common situation: a tenant in a multi-dwelling building has asked an operator for service, and the landlord has repeatedly failed to respond to the operator’s requests for access. In that case the Act gives the operator a route to the tribunal for interim rights, without the landlord having refused anything. The problem it was written for was silence rather than refusal. The government review underpinning the Act estimated that landlords fail to respond to operator access requests in up to 40 per cent of cases, which is the figure the legislation was built around. Part 4A is about one building type, and what that means for anyone holding one, including what is coming next for leasehold flats, sits with the building rather than with the operator’s status.

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When the operator is not a Code operator

A non-Code operator has no statutory position at all. Everything rests on contract. For a landlord this means there is no backstop on either side. There is no obligation to engage, no tribunal route if talks fail, and equally no statutory floor under the terms. A non-Code agreement is whatever the two parties agree it is. For an operator without Code rights it means a refusal is final. There is no application to make and no process to invoke, so the terms have to be commercially acceptable to the landlord on their own merits. The practical difference is in what happens when a negotiation stalls, not in how it starts. Both kinds of operator approach a building the same way and negotiate the same terms. They differ in what is available when agreement cannot be reached. The other place the difference shows is at the far end. A contractual wayleave ends when its own provisions say it does; a Code agreement does not. See how a wayleave agreement ends.

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How Wayline handles this

Wayline’s agreement templates account for both:

• Code operator agreements, referencing the Electronic Communications Code and the operator’s statutory rights
• Non-Code contractual agreements, purely contractual wayleaves without statutory backing

When an operator submits a request on Wayline, their Code status is part of the request metadata. The agreement template adapts accordingly.

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Checking Code status

Ofcom maintains a register of Code operators. You can search for an operator’s Code status on the Ofcom register of persons with powers under the Electronic Communications Code.