Property rights delaying broadband rollout

Almost 70,000 end users are now connected to ultra-fast broadband. Photo: NZME.

Delays in approving consent for the installation of ultra-fast broadband (UFB) cables up shared driveways and in some apartment buildings are hindering the roll-out of the programme.

The report from a select committee review of Crown Fibre Holdings released last week noted that the main obstacle the Crown-owned company had faced in building the network related to consents for and access to infrastructure.

The company is responsible for accelerating the roll-out of UFB, which is currently running ahead of schedule, to 75 per cent of New Zealanders by 2019.

Currently, the network companies doing the work for Crown Fibre must get permission from all owners of properties with shared driveways or right-of-ways to lay cable to their buildings.

Crown Fibre told the committee that around 25 to 30 per cent of premises faced consenting issues to allow connection and solutions relied on Government policy and law changes.

Telecommunications Users' Association of NZ (TUANZ) chief executive Craig Young said they had raised the issue with different stakeholders, including central government, over the past two years.

When Telecom was deregulated, access rights onto private property were lost too, Young said.

Although some rights to access copper networks remained, rolling out the UFB network onto private property required the consent of all private landowners, which delayed the network's rollout when the ownership of shared driveways and apartment building access was unclear, he said.

"Chorus can't enter private property of any type until they've got all the relevant consents," he said.

"It's a common issue across the programme."

Young said he was aware of an example where there were a number of properties down a long driveway and the ownership of the driveway was unclear to the point that no one was prepared to give consent for the fibre provider to install the UFB.

"It took quite a while to sort that one out," he said.

"People are saying it just takes a long time to get these services installed because of this issue.

"We've been talking to the Government for several years and saying, 'look, this is not an issue that Chorus can resolve because they're just following the law.

"There needs to be some change of the relevant laws that enable there to be an easier way."

One solution was Australia's model, which implied "deemed consent", if property owners did not respond to consent requests within a set time-frame, Young said.

The model was supported by Chorus.

Communications Minister Amy Adams said in a statement this afternoon she was aware of the issue, which she had been "taking a close look at for some time now".

The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) had been working with industry to better understand the size and nature of the issue and Adams said she had asked officials to look into whether it required a a regulatory response.

Figures from Adams' office show the UFB roll-out is 43 per cent complete - ahead of schedule and within budget.

National uptake figures as of last December were more than double where they were at in December 2013 and now 69,301 end users were connected.

See the Select Committee report here:

See the Government's UFB roll-out update report here: