MyRepublic rang 2 days ago to tell me my house is now fibre-available. The whole Miramar installation began about 3 months ago (with a projected completion in November) so was eagerly awaiting this day.
A very helpful man came to the house today for the pre-installation survey.
Here's what I've learned:
- Despite installing the grey roadside fibre boxes at the base of every streetside powerpole, permission must be sought from Wellington Electrical Co. (who own the poles) to run the fibre up their pole to the house. This is for every customer, not just every pole. Separately. This takes 7-21 working days. And they may refuse.
- The fibre cable can only be installed along the pre-existing telephone cable. If your house has separate power & telephone cables going to different parts of the house (as mine does) & you wish to route the new fibre with the power so you can remove the telephone line, you can't. If I took the telephone cable down myself, they would just route the fibre where it used to hang. Chorus do not allow the installers to hang the fibre with anything else even if the customer asks or common sense dictates this would be easier.
- The new fibre cannot encroach on even a millimetre into land I or the council do not own. Even if my neighbours provide a letter saying that this is fine (they would), this can't happen as 'if they sell the house, the new owners might insist we take it down'. The power cable & pre-existing telephone cable already encroach on our neighbours boundary but the new fibre install cannot do this under any circumstances. This leaves 2 options - install a second pole 1m away to divert the new fibre onto my land, or dig a trench from the pole to my property (that doesn't cross the neighbours) & then 50m up to my house. I would have to do/pay for either of these options to be built to their specs.
- The new fibre install cannot even touch a single leaf on a tree between the pole & my house. If there is any contact (or likely contact with a branch in the wind) then Chorus will not install the fibre. The current copper cable already passes through a large tree in front of my house. To install fibre along this cable means I will need to cut down the tree.
So... to get cable to my house from the roadside 60m away, I must:
- hope Wellington Electricity grant permission for access to their pole that the fibre junction is already installed at the base of (they are not obliged to do so)
- accept 3 cables going into my house hung 2 different ways rather than consolidate into a single route & access point
- cut down a large mature tree
Does anyone know anyone high enough up in Chorus to make this go away?!
Thanks for listening whilst I repeatedly slam my head against my (currently still standing) beautiful tree.