Unused coloured glass fibre connections are proliferating in Dutch streets as cable companies take their time connecting users and hedge their bets on potential clients, Nu.nl reported on Monday.

According to figures from consumer and market authority ACM, the Netherlands has some three million active glass fibre accounts but some 7.7 million buildings have the potential to be connected to a cable in their location.

In the meantime, tens of thousands of buildings have been left with a glass fibre connection sticking out at the front door which can be there for months and sometimes years before anyone opts to use it.

While some companies opt only to connect paying customers, others choose to lay a cable to get one over on the competition. “By just putting in a cable you claim the street and make it that much more unlikely that a competitor will do the same,” said Rudolf van der Berg from glass fibre consultancy Stratix

It is unclear how many places have sprouted fibre cable shoots but unregulated cabling is causing havoc underground and threatening trees, a key government environmental advisor has warned.

“At the moment any network operator can just rip up a street to see if there’s room for more cables,” Wouter Veldhuis, who advises the government on the physical environment, told the AD. “It’s first come, first served, but we can no longer afford to do that.”

Veldhas said that unregulated cabling, combined with an emergency operation to install almost 50,000 electricity substations to relieve pressure on the national grid, will make matters worse.

Amsterdam alone has clocked up 30,000 unplanned cabling works a year. “Phone companies in particular are nipping in and out. It’s cowboy country,” the city’s chief planner Joyce van den Berg said.  “It never used to be a problem but now we need to organise and cooperate.”