dolbyjr:

 

I tried to follow the 'ask your RSP process' initially. When I approached my RSP asking for Rural Fibre after noting on Chorus' website that Rural Fibre was available at my address, the RSP told me in no uncertain terms that there was NO fibre at my address, it was unlikely that there ever would be, and also that they hadn't even heard of a product called Rural Fibre. This was the same story from several staff members there. That is why I went back to the Chorus website and made contact with the Rural Broadband team via the website.

 

So to those who say 'follow the correct process', how can you if the RSP has not provided their staff with the relevant information? This situation may well have changed since I started my journey over two years ago, that the process I followed was the one that worked for me at the time.

 

As to the suggestion that there is no obligation to provide details of what makes up a quote for an installation, I was asked to pay in the order of $9000 without any explanation of what this provided apart from 'this is the cost of fibre to your place'. If I got a quote from a tradesman for a job, I'd at least like to see a breakdown of the costs: hardware, labour, ancillaries, etc... Particularly for an amount of that magnitude. Clearly the information was there because it was noted verbally to me after pushing hard for any details at all of what the quote was for that it covered 'Fibre back to the exchange'. Had I accepted that quote, would they have just carried on with the job all the way back to the exchange? It was only after I had that information that I was able to ask for the quote to be checked again pointing out that the Rural Fibre ran past my gate.. The next quote came back at $900 which seemed reasonable [to me] for spanning 180 metres aerially and then 5 metres underground to the dwelling.

 

I also lost several months by asking the guy when he came to do the site inspection about the costs of running fibre to a new house that we have planned at the bottom of the property. Apparently this was taken to mean that we were planning to subdivide our lifestyle block, and the order was sent to some other team responsible for subdivisions... It took several attempts to get the order out of that black whole. So the 'process' is apparently pretty easily put off course.

 

So to those who say 'follow the process', I would point out that there seems to be very little information about the actual process and what to do when the order gets 'diverted'. Perhaps more transparency about the process, the costs, and where you actually are in the process (or out of in my case) wouldn't go amiss. I am happy to concede that things are working better now for those very select few of us who can access Rural Fibre, but seeing threads like this with quotes in the 5 figure range doesn't give me much hope.

 

I would've been more than happy to pay the $900 install BTW. However $9000 for what I believed was running around 180 metres of fibre along some poles (which I had spent several days clearing and chainsawing around to ensure easy access on a flat well gravelled driveway), and hooking it up at each end, seemed to be a little high. I'm pleased I pushed back on that to ensure that at least they were quoting based on the correct information.

 

My response to your issue with "RSPs" is that you should have found another RSP more capable and willing to help you with your specific requirement. Your justification for not following the proper process is with a SINGLE company, the BIGGEST company. The telco industry is quite large/complicated and expecting a given tier 1 call centre agent to know everything inside and out is not realistic Hell, if you posted on this forum you would have found help pretty quickly and as you've seen, some RSP accounts just flat out tell you "we know what you're talking about, give us a call/email and we'll help you".

Re costs, fair enough, I think it's weird RSPs cannot even get a reasonable breakdown (estimated labour costs, parts etc) but this is life. You being discouraged about quotes in the "5 figure range" is a bit weird though, it's "NGA on Application" for a reason, every place is going to be slightly different and no one ever got hurt by asking right?