Chorus made the news again..

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Lias

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#231894 19-Mar-2018 12:47

https://www.stuff.co.nz/auckland/local-news/north-shore-times/102309062/Residents-on-Aucklands-North-Shore-see-red-over-paying-double-for-driveway

Interesting read, and I expect we're going to see more of this.

TL;DR Chorus installed fibre down a shared driveway/ROW, the subcontractors were lazy/incompetent and only shallow trenched the fibre and now Chorus wants 20k to do it properly so the driveway can be resurfaced.

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#1979812 19-Mar-2018 12:51

Don't worry. Now that the media has covered it, Chorus will offer to fix it for free.

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#1979813 19-Mar-2018 12:54

I'm not surprised by this. Chorus' subcontractors are obviously financially incentivised to do the minimum possible work to get it connected. Our initial Chorus (well, Visionstream) scope said they would cut into the concrete stairwell that went down the side of our house to lay the fibre then cover it up. Install date came and the method suddenly changed to a tube across the stairwell. We didn't care enough to argue but it just seemed lazy on their part.

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#1979814 19-Mar-2018 12:55

Unsurprising... eventually all these things catch up.

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#1979844 19-Mar-2018 13:26

I never knew it, but when a friend/client had fiber run to his house, they ran it under his house somehow, popped out the other side, and then just ran it across his yard to his standalone "office". Now, his yard, is all pebbles/riverstones, probably about 50-100mm deep. The cable works its way up and ends up sitting on top of the stones, waiting for someone to trip on it.

He showed it to me a couple weeks ago and I was astounded. Im running some network cable for him, and thats going down the fence. Maybe I should ask Chorus to send engineer to see how it can be done ;) (and probably use less cable in the run as well)

Why the hell they couldn't run it along the fence, who knows. Hes gone back to his ISP to ask them to get Chorus back out and run it along the fence as where it is, its just plain stupid. So, lazy Chorus contractors abound in appears ;)

Red = existing run

Blue - proposed run

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#1979848 19-Mar-2018 13:30

It's quite concerning as there seem to be examples all over the country, and with reduction in the use of copper access lines, this work becomes essential infrastructure that (back in the Telecom days) would be expected to last over 30 years. Clearly, a micro-duct nailed to an old fence will need to be replaced much sooner.

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#1979857 19-Mar-2018 13:48

Hi, yes there does seem to be plenty of shoddy jobs like this, and over time when fences need replacing etc Chorus should cut some slack on the cost of re running, as its to their convenience to do a cheap job now.

That said, in the case of this drive, I dont see a big issue or $ to have the microduct dropped in depth to allow the drive to be resealed, maybe I mis read the situation.

It would be interesting to know what Chorus intend to charge to re blow fibre when a micro duct is moved/extended to get around these types of situations and the duct has to be cut and a section added etc.

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#1979864 19-Mar-2018 13:55

IMO, do things once and properly, and it should then last as long as a copper install did. I can see this sort of story is going to become more and more common. I have seen cables just tacked onto old fences which at some stage will need replacing which has a high risk of damaging the cable, and additional costs for the land owner. There are also cables exposed at the edge of the street, which could get cut by a spade or a vandal causing disruption. When if it was installed underground in the first place, they could have avoid that future potential cost. These things IMO should be well underground. In my case they installed in in the old copper conduit, which was originally installed well underground, so it wasn't an issue for me.

Also 20k for a install!, Does that include relaying the drive as well?

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#1979865 19-Mar-2018 14:00

cyril7:

Hi, yes there does seem to be plenty of shoddy jobs like this, and over time when fences need replacing etc Chorus should cut some slack on the cost of re running, as its to their convenience to do a cheap job now.

But the money to do that has to come from somewhere in the future. Otherwise it becomes an expensive liability, because it won't ever be cheaper to do it properly, than now.. Shortcuts have a big cost down the track for someone, and it is usually the taxpayer or ratepayer that picks up the cost at the end of the day.

Zeon

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#1979866 19-Mar-2018 14:00

As much as I hate to see this I think the approach with super cheap installs was the only way. Simply because of people's lack of foresight and interest in investing into good quality.

People didn't want to pay for high quality installations at the outset of UFB - just the minimum price (or nothing) or otherwise they would most likely stick with copper for far longer (and hurt the UFB project viability through much slwoer uptake). The cost or a proper installation should be born by the property owners as it it for the likes of water, sewage etc. Having Chorus own it up until the ETP and thus expecting Chorus to pay for a quality job would have made the UFB an unviable project as people are just too cheap to pay for a decent job, especially when they saw it as Chorus' responsibility. Perhaps the only other way would have been to force up copper prices to 2-3x the price of fibre and offer long term finance on the cost of a quality installation to the land owners - perhaps tack it onto their mortgages. Even then landowners probably wouldn't have considered it - especially for rentals unless the cost of copper was much higher and potential tenants wouldn't consider their rental as a result of not being able to get affordable internet.

Property owners who consider the long term would have insisted on a quality job or even pay more for it to be a quality job if Chorus didn't offer it included in a free install. Those short term owners who weren't worried about the resale prices of their properties who haven't already sold or are in the process of selling their properties now now are going to start feeling it.

As more of these problems arise in the media and buyers can see the potential future costs as a result of poor installations surface, then buyers will consider this as they do all other factors when valuing a property and negotiate down the price if they can see they may be struck with a high cost of maintenance in the future.

For a long term asset like a property those who went the cheap option are going to hurt and will be picking up the tab they probably could have saved on if they did it properly in the beginning. NZers are short term thinkers and the only other way I can see them to have made the decision of their own volition would have been to force up copper prices straight away where fibre was laid and mandate a minimum quality of installation that was paid for by property owners - probably not something that would be popular for a government. Now the crappy installs will need to be done properly or repeatedly as they break.

Speedtest 2019-10-14

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#1979869 19-Mar-2018 14:04

I agree, but it is going to come back to bite us IMO. We learnt this with the leaky building crisis, where old traditional ways of building were abandoned.

xpd

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#1979871 19-Mar-2018 14:06

"IF" fiber ever arrives (been delayed yet AGAIN), I have the ideal path for it to be run - will they do it tho ? The $20k question it appears.........

XPD / Gavin

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acjh58

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#1979882 19-Mar-2018 14:28

The issue here is both economic and political. Economically, the cost of UFB was estimated without including the access drop costs (some will dispute that, but you see the reality of it now). At least two models predicted that the drop costs would be approximately the same as the core infrastructure costs - if done to normal telecommunications network standards. If charged to the consumer wanting UFB access, the drop cost (typically thousands of dollars) would probably have been a major disincentive for UFB uptake.

Free installations are not really free as someone has to pay, and that has fallen to the likes of Chorus and Enable. It's no surprise that low cost options have been adopted. However, as with any infrastructure, low initial capital cost often means high operation/maintenance costs. I'm guessing that the plan is to pass those costs onto the consumer - such as in the case of the 20mm burial in the driveway.

Alan

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darkasdes2

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#1979900 19-Mar-2018 14:58

Just wondering for shared driveways and MDU etc that consent needs to be gained before the contractor will come out to look at what needs to be done with the install (before the rules changed to people having to object to the install)

Once the design is done, is it shared with everyone who gave consent or because the contractor has been given consent, they dont bother going back to everyone who has given consent to make sure they are happy with the plan? If that's the case, its not really consent.....

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#1979901 19-Mar-2018 14:59

acjh58:

The issue here is both economic and political. Economically, the cost of UFB was estimated without including the access drop costs (some will dispute that, but you see the reality of it now). At least two models predicted that the drop costs would be approximately the same as the core infrastructure costs - if done to normal telecommunications network standards. If charged to the consumer wanting UFB access, the drop cost (typically thousands of dollars) would probably have been a major disincentive for UFB uptake.

In the very early days these costs were similar - around $3k per premises passed for the network build, and around $3k for the install.

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#1979908 19-Mar-2018 15:06

It's hardly surprising he didn't a response to his letters to Mark Ratcliffe sent in December 2017 considering he left Chorus in February.

I'm actually slightly confused as to what the issue is here and what is stopping the driveway from being resealed. Shallow trenching has "shallow" in it for a reason and is a pretty normal method of running cable. From the picture though it's pretty hard to understand what the driveway looks like. If they're removing all the existing concrete for the driveway it'll simply leave the exposed cable which can simply be concreted over - it's not going to damage it.

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