Any ways to push Chorus to wire for free?

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gunpowder

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#311715 8-Feb-2024 22:22

Greetings everybody!

Long story short: is there any way to push Chorus to wire my house?

Details:

There are 4 houses built under the same address (formally these are not units, but separate houses). The houses are fresh, like 6 months only. I am one of the tenants who is renting. Chorus laid down the cable on the street long before the houses were built. So all neighbours to the left and right from our house are wired, but our houses are not. When I submitted the request to wire me through Chorus, these boys just literally didn't do anything during 1.5 month and after several calls told me to submit the request through provider. After I submitted request through provider (2 degrees), they've came, look at the place and then quoted me 1400 NZD for wiring me due to groundworks (as they explain), which I of course cannot afford, since I am a fresh settler in this beautiful country.

What really annoys me is that all this looks like a blackmailing. For some reason what they want to do as a principle is to connect two tubes, or in other words to fill with the cable the only empty space on the street. They position it as a somewhat 'tax' for new houses. Here is what they write me and keep repeating as parrots:

The contribution is sort for all subdivisions and new developments to bring Fibre to your boundary within the Council Road Reserve (outside of your legal boundary – as per the yellow area in the diagram below). Any premises that did not exist at the time of the UFB Rollout are required to pay a contribution. Chorus’s costs for providing fibre to your boundary is often more than that quoted. We only ever ask for a contribution towards this, rather than a full cost recovery.

My problem is that: one of our houses is wired. So they actually wired one house (the landlord's one) without groundworks, using existing tube and it's all fine. My house is literally one meter from the tube (see pic), but they pushing me to pay for the groundworks, which I don't need by any means. I am keeping asking them if this is somewhat a discrimination or what, and why one house in a row is wired by Chorus and others cannot be. They keep repeating about their 'tax' and put me into doggy-style 'no payment of 1400 nzd - no internet' (which i dislike especially). I don't understand why should I feed Chorus.

Is there a way to somehow argue with them? There is no possibility landlord will pay for these groundworks: he's simply not interested in that. Or is this a better option just to buy starlink and forget about all this? Any advise will be appreciated.

Here are the pics:

1) The house and the tube. From this exact tube the furthest house on our address is wired.

2) Here is what Chorus wants to connect in order to wire me: the closest tube and the furthest (near black box).

Thanks in advance

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Jase2985

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#3192766 9-Feb-2024 07:47

the $1400 covers the costs of any material and labour in installing the service to your property, covers updating of drawings, covers any additional equipment like splitters that may be required to provision fibre at your premisis.

$1400 is pretty reasonable for one of the best fibre networks in the world.

Also you mention getting Starlink, while that may sound like a great solution right now if you look at the numbers it would only take you 13 months to catch up on the amount you are paying by going for Starlink over fibre. From then on, you are spending $80 a month more for an inferior service.

Wheelbarrow01

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#3192924 9-Feb-2024 17:17

I'll try to break this down as best I can - and apologies if I am repeating with others have said (busy day, no time to read whole thread)

Fibre is laid to the boundary free of charge, for every house/dwelling that existed at the time fibre was laid in the street.

If a property owner chooses to demolish a pre-existing house and replace it with 4, then one of those 4 new houses can take advantage of the fibre drop-off that already existed at the boundary. For the additional 3 houses, Chorus needs to build 3 new fibre drop-offs to the boundary, and these must be paid for.

This is the reason your landlord got one of the new dwellings connected so easily - one fibre drop-off to the boundary already existed for the original dwelling.

Ultimately developers are responsible for contacting Chorus to arrange the additional network capacity to enable the extra dwellings to be connected. However sometimes they do not, and there can be a number of reasons for this - 1. They don't know that they should, 2. They know that they should but they don't want to pay and would rather pass the buck to the new owner (if on-sold) or to the tenant. I personally do not agree with this, but have seen it happen time and again.

You are in a bit of a rubbish situation to be honest. Ideally the party that developed the property and built the additional dwellings should pay for the extra fibre network required to connect them, however Chorus cannot compel the developer or owner to do so. Tragically, this means if you want to be connected to fibre, you may have to pay yourself, or try to argue your case with your landlord. I know this is not what you want to hear.

You may need to check the Residential Tenancies Act or check with Tenancy Services on what rights you have - I am not sure if landlords MUST provide access to telecommunications or not. From memory, they are only required to do so if it can be done at no cost to them. But they can simply turn around and tell you to get a wireless 4/5G service - this doesn't require the landlord/owner to outlay any money.

I am not happy that the cost of connecting a brand new dwelling to our network has been referred to as a "tax". It's not a tax, it is a request for a contribution towards the cost of connecting new dwellings to the Chorus network.

Many thanks,

Simon

Senior Customer Delivery Manager - Chorus

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

MichaelNZ

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#3210845 25-Mar-2024 21:58

gunpowder:

There are 4 houses built under the same address (formally these are not units, but separate houses). The houses are fresh, like 6 months only. I am one of the tenants who is renting.

Chorus (or any local LFC) is contracted to provide "free" installs to legal addresses within 100m of the road at the time of roll out.

It sounds like it was originally a single address so someone probably got a "free" install. But the upshot here is you will have to pay. We have come across this before with new addresses and $1,400 is at the low end. Same deal with someone >100m from the road. They also have to pay. Noone wants to pay but in years of dealing with various install scenarios I can advise the only people who have ever gotten installed are those who were eligible or who forked out the cash.

If it makes you feel better I was quoted $55k to install UFB here. So I am still on VDSL.

We recently connected a client who had to pay $11k. They were adjacent to an area served by UFB but their address was out of coverage so the network had to be extended. Thanks to them everyone between there and the coverage area will get a cheaper or free install.

Another client in the same situation as you was quoted (from memory) about $2.5k. For some reason their address did not exist at the time of rollout or was not included. I can't recall.

One of the ISP's I work for has a client who is just outside the coverage area,. For some unknown reason they stopped the UFB rollout where they did rather then finish off the road. I didn't get a quote for him but was told his neighbour had been quoted well into 5-figures. He is still on VDSL.

Having a contact in Chorus can help fix issues up but this does not extend to what you are after. I have heard of people thinking their connections or appeals will get them mileage. But I have never heard of anyone succeeding.

$1,400 is at the very low end so I suggest you just pay it, move, or get VDSL.

TLDR; "No".

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