Getting Fibre in a rural location -- fools errand?

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#2963720 5-Sep-2022 21:38

mentalinc:

What are you trying to achieve?

Do you make money from the fibre improving productivity?

Have you ruled out alternatives? e.g. starlink or getting another VDSL line etc?

What are you VDSL sync stats and speed tests? Have you done everything you can to make this the best it can be?

I do a lot of telecommuting, and I host services. I do a lot of large file shares as part of a video production outfit, and VDSL is just really not great for that kind of bandwidth hog.

I gave Starlink a go for a month. We could not get a reliable video call out of it (every 10-30 minutes would see a few seconds of disconnect, and that's just incredibly disruptive), and streaming services would have buffering issues. It was much faster at downloading though and had a lot higher bandwidth.

I typically see speeds around 60/25. Sundays it can get really bad, I assume everyone is just streaming video or something. We get by on VDSL... but fibre would just be a straight upgrade for us, worth thousands of dollars (but not 10s of thousands).

quickymart

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#2963724 5-Sep-2022 21:45

I answered some of your questions from your first post in my other post. Have a read there, hopefully that explains things a bit more for you.

flapjack

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#2963727 5-Sep-2022 21:49

quickymart:

I answered some of your questions from your first post in my other post. Have a read there, hopefully that explains things a bit more for you.

I read it, highly appreciate it. It looks like I'm stuck to VDSL, and honestly from what I've read out there I'm pretty lucky to have it working well. Just a little bit paranoid it will disappear or degrade on me 😅

mentalinc

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#2963729 5-Sep-2022 21:57

Unfortunately, it's really expensive to try and get fibre for one house, if the high costs don't stack up from making your job better you're kinda stuck.

When did you try starlink? Wondering if it has improved over the period since you last tried it?

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jonb

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#2963730 5-Sep-2022 21:59

A few years ago Chorus used to have a good map available showing the 'RBI Fibre', if this happened to be going past your street on the way to the school the cost to install would be in the lower range, possibly high four figures/low 5 figures. It looks like the 'rural' overlay on the map is the equivalent of that now (?):

https://www.chorus.co.nz/tools-support/broadband-tools/broadband-map

Looks like Waitetuna isn't part of that overlay so likely is just the distribution/trunk fibre going past that can't be hooked into, so more like 6 figures install cost.

Lias

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#2963732 5-Sep-2022 22:16

flapjack:

but fibre would just be a straight upgrade for us, worth thousands of dollars (but not 10s of thousands).

It costs nothing to put in the POA application, but I would expect that best case you are going to be quoted high thousands / low 10s of thousands. If that's potentially viable, worth the ask IMHO.

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quickymart

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#2963736 5-Sep-2022 22:29

Most providers don't offer NGA quotes however, as when people find out how much it's going to be (half the time they think it's only going to be "a few thousand"), 99% of the time once they get the actual amount they simply don't want to proceed as it's far higher than they were expecting. If you're still keen on getting one, you'll need to call around and see who does them.

From memory @myfullflavour might do them?

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Wheelbarrow01

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#2963760 6-Sep-2022 00:34

quickymart:

Most providers don't offer NGA quotes however, as when people find out how much it's going to be (half the time they think it's only going to be "a few thousand"), 99% of the time once they get the actual amount they simply don't want to proceed as it's far higher than they were expecting. If you're still keen on getting one, you'll need to call around and see who does them.

From memory @myfullflavour might do them?

This is probably fairly common nowadays. As Spark's SDM, I know they used to offer NOA (aka price on application), however for commercial reasons they stopped offering it to residential/consumer customers a couple of years ago. They now only offer it to business/corporate customers (and it's subject to additional credit checks).

Skinny is a subsidiary of Spark with a primary focus on consumer customers, so that is possibly why you got a lukewarm response from them. As a Chorus employee I can't steer you toward any particular RSP, but there are still several RSPs large and small who offer this service. If you are applying under a business name, Spark may also assist (subject to the aforementioned credit checks) Again this is just general information, not a recommendation or endorsement of any particular RSP - I just know about Spark in particular because I am part of their Chorus account team. Ultimately it's up to you to make some enquiries with a few different RSPs who offer this service, and choose the one you like best.

The process is the same no matter who you choose - you provide the address information to your chosen RSP, they will contact Chorus and ask for an estimate. A Chorus network planner will complete a desktop scope and provide an estimate back to the RSP, who will then advise you the estimated price. If you are happy with the estimate and wish to proceed further, your RSP will then place an order for you. Upon receipt of the order, Chorus will do a full network design and a fixed price quote will be generated and passed back to the RSP, who will then advise you of the quoted price - which is valid for 90 days. If you accept the quote, Chorus will proceed to build the network to your gate, and will then schedule the final installation in your house. Once complete, your RSP will bill you for the full cost of the installation. The whole process generally takes from 3-6 months.

You can cancel at any point prior to quote acceptance and you will not be charged anything. But once the quote has been accepted by you, you are liable to pay up to the full quoted cost for the connection, even if the work doesn't get completed in full due to the cancellation.

In terms of how easy it is to tap into a backhaul fibre down your rural road, imagine that it's one of those massive high tension electrical pylons carrying 220,000 volts that you're trying to connect to. You can't just wire your house directly into that pylon - your lines company would first have to install a sub-station and step down transformers etc before you could connect a 240 volt retail connection. Backhaul fibre is a similar thing - to get a retail GPON fibre service, Chorus would likely need to install a cabinet (the sub station if you will) and a splitter (the step down transformer) to enable you to connect. It's certainly not impossible but the process is more complicated and usually costs a lot more than most people imagine.

I've seen it all in my time - I've seen nationally branded businesses reject $10k quotes and I personally quoted a residential customer over $100k and he emailed me back with the signed quote literally 5 minutes later. I've seen estimates significantly lower than the final quote and vice versa... It all comes down to what it would mean for you to have that fibre connection - be it a better home life through happy connected kids, or the ability to host those web sites and run that business from home. Getting that estimate is the first step.

This page on the Chorus website may give you a bit more information.

The views expressed by me are not necessarily those of my employer Chorus NZ Ltd

myfullflavour

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Full Flavour

#2963762 6-Sep-2022 02:03

We charge $175 to get a quote on your behalf.

It’s a lot of admin for an ISP to manage these and due to the high costs involved, ~80% of the quotes don’t get accepted.

The Chorus ordering process is convoluted (multiple ordering steps per above, often regular chasing of Chorus to get steps completed).

For the ~20% that do proceed, it’s a good outcome. Some even on hyperfibre.

CYaBro

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#2963779 6-Sep-2022 07:58

Full Flavour did our NGA on application.
Initially they estimated $10k for the job.
We had to pay the $175 to get a proper quote done by chorus which we did.
They came back with a cost of just over $14k.
We went ahead with it.
There was fibre running past our gate. School about 2km down the road one way and a roadside cabinet (not a dsl cabinet) about 2kms in the other direction.
No neighbours.
xDSL not available here and basically no cell coverage and our only option for internet was a local WISP. Speeds were 15/5.
It took about 7 months from when we started the process to going live.
This was in 2020 just after the first lockdown.
We had to pay the full amount to chorus before they would do the work.

Opinions are my own and not the views of my employer.

wellygary

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#2963805 6-Sep-2022 09:25

What's your relationship with the school like?

Back in the early days of the fibre rollout Rural Schools were allowed to on sell access to their fibre, not sure whether this still is a thing thou..

You would need to arrange to connect your place to theirs, but depending on the distance if you could connect via point to point wifi you will likely get a connection for well under the 10K mark...

CYaBro

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#2963806 6-Sep-2022 09:30

wellygary:
What's your relationship with the school like?

Back in the early days of the fibre rollout Rural Schools were allowed to on sell access to their fibre, not sure whether this still is a thing thou..

You would need to arrange to connect your place to theirs, but depending on the distance if you could connect via point to point wifi you will likely get a connection for well under the 10K mark...

I think this is still a thing as it was an option I was looking at if fibre wasn’t available or was going to cost a lot more.

Opinions are my own and not the views of my employer.

MikeAqua

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#2963881 6-Sep-2022 14:43

Looked into this for my father's property. Basically you'll have to pay for the additional infrastructure, Chorus will own it, and you'll still pay full price to use it.

Mike

quickymart

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#2963899 6-Sep-2022 15:39

The issue I would see with piggybacking off the school's connection is if there's an issue/fault and the school is shut for the school holidays (for example) you're basically without a connection until the school reopens.

Handle9

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#2963968 6-Sep-2022 19:04

MikeAqua: Chorus will own it, and you'll still pay full price to use it.

All of which is entirely reasonable. There’s no commercial reason for Chrous to build this type of infrastructure. It’s questionable whether it’s commercially viable to maintain a service to these types of premises as chorus can’t charge more for the ongoing connection.

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