Removal of NTL cables

Sandymountman

Hi,
I've just bought a house and NTL have their cables running across the front of it. It's all very ugly. I want NTL to remove these cables. I have no interest in ever using NTL's crappy service even if I could get onto them to connect me.
Obviously, this would disrupt service to my neighbours but I think it is up to NTL to figure this out (I'm not about to go out and cut the cables).
Does anyone know what the legal situation is regarding this? From a search online, it seems that the only people with a legal right to have cables on your property are Eircom and the ESB.
Has anyone been down this route.
Many thanks,

Raytown Rocks

Is yours a terraced house or semi-d or detached,
This will have a bearing on what NTL would have to do.
If your terraced it would make life a lot more difficult for them.
Obviously if your detached they can try to re run the cable to by pass your property.
There may be civil ( digging ) work required for them to move the cables.
I.E they will have to run the cable underground to bypass your property.
Maybe you could just get them to come out and tidy the cable up?

EDIT
Not sure legally, but it is your property so if you dont want cables on your house you should be able to ask them to remove it.
I do recall that the opposite applies to NTL, they actually own the cable's that are on your house so if you were to interfere ( I know your not going to) with them they can then get tough with you.

Sandymountman

The house is a semi-d. The essence of my question is where do I legally stand on trying to get them to remove the cables. I don't care what trouble I put them to.

Sandymountman

Well, the problem is that NTL refuse to return my calls when I try to contact them about this problem. They won't give me a contact/issue number to track the problem because I don't have an NTL account. What can I do? Who do I write to or contact to get anything done about it?

Raytown Rocks

Sandymountman wrote:

The house is a semi-d. The essence of my question is where do I legally stand on trying to get them to remove the cables. I don't care what trouble I put them to.

I realise you dont care what they need to do to fix it, I was just trying to explain what may be involved.
Again Legally I dont know.
If you were to cut the cables ( which I dont condone ) this would disconnect everyone behind you on the feed, which you obviously dont want to do.
I suppose its a case of threatening to disconnect all cables for your house if you dont have a reply within 24 hours.

THIS IS FROM THEIR WEBSITE



14 Complaints Procedure

NTL would like to know if you have any difficulties associated with the service you receive so that we can try to put matters right. All such problems should be taken up immediately with your Customer Management Centre who will do everything possible to resolve them. Any such problems will be captured and identified on the Customer Management System on the day they are identified to us. Any issues will be tracked and escalated by the system through the resolution process to ensure quality of resolution within the timescales advised. NTL aims to give you an acknowledgement to any problems raised within 2 working days, and a resolution to the problem within 20 working days. This is in line with industry standards. However, it must be recognised that some cases may take longer than others. In all cases, NTL will work with you to resolve such problems. NTL will retain all records pertaining to complaints for at least one year after resolution of the complaint. If you are not satisfied with the outcome to your complaint you may wish to refer the matter to the ODTR for advice. You may of course choose to take the matter to an independent body.

Address and telephone number for customer management centre (CMC)

NTL, IDA Waterford Industrial Park, Cork Road, Waterford.

1800 321 321

Sandymountman

Well unfortunately, I can't avail of their complaints procedure because they won't give me a reference number to track the complaint with (reason in earlier post).
Do you know who the independent complaints body is that they refer to? I have sent an email to ComReg but they said it is not their area. Who police's this effective monopoly?

Raytown Rocks

A host of contact numbers on ther NTL site.
Maybe try 1 or all of these.


Advertising Standards Authority for Ireland
IPC House
Shelbourne Road
Dublin 4
Telephone (01) 660 8766
Fax: (01) 660 8113
www.asai.ie

Broadcasting Complaints Commission
c/o Department of Finance
Government Buildings
Dublin 2
Telephone (01) 676 7571
Fax: (01) 668 2182


[Chartered Institute of Arbitrators (Irish Branch)
8 Merrion Square
Dublin 2
Telephone (01) 662 7867
Fax: (01) 662 7891] Consumer Advice Shop
13A Upper O'Connell Street
Dublin 1
Telephone (01) 809 0600
Fax: (01) 809 0601


Department of Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands
D?mhirgin
43-49 Mespil Road
Dublin 4
Telephone (01) 647 3000
Fax: (01) 667 0826
eolas@ealga.irlgov.ie

European Consumer Advice Centre
13A Upper O'Connell Street
Dublin 1
Telephone (01) 809 0600
Fax: (01) 809 0601


Independent Radio and Television Commission
Marine House
Clanwilliam Place
Dublin 2
Telephone (01) 676 0966
Fax: (01) 676 0948
info@irtc.ie

Office of the Director of Telecommunications Regulation (ODTR)
Abbey Court
Irish Life Centre
Lower Abbey Street
Dublin 1
Telephone (01) 804 9600
Fax: (01) 804 9680
www.odtr.ie


Office of the Director of Consumer Affairs
4 Harcourt Road
Dublin 2
Telephone Lo-call 1890 220 229 Regulator of Premium Rate Telecommunications Services Ltd. (Regtel)
Crescent Hall
Mount Street Crescent
Dublin 2
Telephone (01) 676 7025
Fax: (01) 676 7035
info@regtel.ie

Sandymountman

I don't know how valid any of these contacts are. The one one which I would have thought could have helped, Comreg, gave me this reply.
"Please be advised that NTL were deregulated back in July 2003, we have no jurisdiction over them."
They all look pretty toothless.

watty

Office of the Director of Telecommunications Regulation (ODTR)

Mweheehaaahaha!

BCI only regulates what channels can be carried.


Office of the Director of Consumer Affairs

Ought to help. But there is no great evidence of it.

Our Government tends to favour the Suppliers rather than the Consumers.


The original owner at the time may have signed a "right of way". They tend to be more carefull at getting them now, even offereing free or reduced cost services where a owner is refusing access.

It's likely once the cables are there for 5 years there is a defacto right of way and the best you can do is demand a small anual rent. ESB / Eircom supposed to pay you if they insist on a pole in your lawn.

brightspark

Watty said:
The original owner at the time may have signed a "right of way". They tend to be more carefull at getting them now

It's my recollection that when I bought my house just over 10 years ago, my solicitor informed me that I would also be bound by the previous owners agreement regarding the cable company's right to pass cables through my property. At the time it didn't bother me as I was keeping the cable service (didn't know how bad it could be).

Perhaps it could be challenged through the unfair contracts law

http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/ZZSI27Y1995.html

GerardKeating

Sandymountman wrote:

I've just bought a house and NTL have their cables running across the front of it. It's all very ugly. I want NTL to remove these cables. I have no interest in ever using NTL's crappy service even if I could get onto them to connect me.

When the cable service was origionally provide, they would have gotten the owner of the property to sign a waiver to allow them to run the cable over the property, this will bind you since the waiver claimed the right-of-way they were given would pass to future owners.

But depending on when the house was cabled, (maybe in the early 70's) the actual document may be long lost, so they could not enforce it.

But legal rights go to those with the biggest pockets, can you afford a legal action with them.

Solair

It's a bit of an odd situation. If you cut everyone off on the street as a result of your action, I can assure you, that you will be "that crank at no. XX who cost us our cable service!" I lived in an area in Cork city and for years we couldn't get cable because this one guy wouldn't let Multichannel pass through his property. They wouldn't connect the rest of the houses as it was uneconomic for them to dig up the pavement.

Personally, I think running the cables along the fronts of the houses isn't the worst sollution. It's certainly a lot less hassle and a lot less disruptive than digging up the street and it's not as ugly as cables strung from poles (as eircom likes). I've seen coax on poles in the US and it's extremely ugly as it's very thick

I would suggest that you insist that they paint the black cable to an appropriate colour i.e. something aproximating the colour of your house.
That or do it yourself.

Don't however, paint any boxes, amplifiers or taps as you will just make some maintenence guy's life extremely difficult.

They probabally have an established right of way across the houses and since no one objected for 20+ years, you might have a very serious difficulty having the courts enforce anything against them at this stage.

It'd be a different case if they were wiring across your house for the first time now.

The tax man

If you've plastic fascias and guttering NTL can run plastic trunking along the fascia and hide the cables in it. Available in black white and brown.

Whatsthisabout

You are entitled to ask for them to be moved however for every year they have been on the house its something like 3 months notice. This could potentially mean they may not have to come up with a solution for over a year.

Also once cables have been removed from your property that house can never be connected again even after you may leave.

All in all they have to move them if you request it could just take a while.

I had a friend in a similar situation some time ago

Sponge Bob

Solair wrote:

They probabally have an established right of way across the houses and since no one objected for 20+ years, you might have a very serious difficulty having the courts enforce anything against them at this stage.

I would suspect there may be a musty piece of paper , maybe as much as 40 years old , that gave them the original wayleave , most likely from the early 1970s sometime.

A right of way is established if the cable is not challenged in ( pick one of the following) 12 or 14 or 15 years , certainly not as much as 20 .

Therefore if NTL (through a neighbour) can prove that the service was there in 1987 I would think Solair is totally correct and that they now have a common law wayleave / right of way as WELL as that original signed one of the mushty sort . You would have to apply to "extinguish" that wayleave or right of way which would cost a bloody fortune in legal fees .

That does not mean that NTL can leave an ugly streel of resolutely unmaintained cable draped across the facade of what may now be a listed house or across a house which may have conservation area status or if there is any smidge of possible danger to the homeowner from its being neglected

It'd be a different case if they were wiring across your house for the first time now.

Correct , they would have to have a waiver/right of way/wayleave signed by the owner first.

By the way that Waterford address on the NTL website no longer exists . Were you to send a registered letter there, in good faith <cough> and if it were then returned as undeliverable <cough> then in sort of good faith you could do whatever you actually threatened to do in the letter as NTL is sort of deliberately uncontactable nowadays .

Address and telephone number for customer management centre (CMC)

NTL, IDA Waterford Industrial Park, Cork Road, Waterford.

This operation is hidden in a bunker in Limerick nowadays, NTL should update their website seeing as that Waterford office closed last year.

watty

This operation is hidden in a bunker in Limerick nowadays,

You mean there is more UNDER the ground than what I can see with my binoculars?

Antenna

Sandymountman wrote:

Hi,
I've just bought a house and NTL have their cables running across the front of it. It's all very ugly. I want NTL to remove these cables. I have no interest in ever using NTL's crappy service even if I could get onto them to connect me,

Bear in mind that if you do get the cables off your property, NTL may then have no choice but to convert their surrounding customers over to MMDS. Are you then going to start complaining about the MMDS aerials being installed on surrounding chimneys as "all very ugly" ?

Which is the lesser evil?

your neighbours, if they have to be converted to MMDS, may not be too happy with the loss of analogue channels and so not being able to make the use they had of VCRs (and extra TVs), and perhaps loss of cable broadband.

are you agreeable to them trying to re-route/hide the cables on your property or do you still want them off altogether?

XxjustepicxX

I just bought a house and i want upc installed but the previous owners didnt want the cable going through the garden so im not on their network.. UPC was saying they would try but nobody ever came to put me on the system has anybody got some advice please....
Very much appreciated