Eircom , surprise surprise

newcavanman

i live 2 miles outside Cootehill, in county Cavan . we have lived here for 3 years and were told from square one by eircom that we could not have BB . We got 3mobile, which is adequate, but not great . Imagine my surpirse 2 months ago when my neighbour invited me in to see his new Perlico BB . I was stunned, so i rang perlico, who said i needed to contact eircom , to cut a long story short, i got an email from eircom telling me that i was not to contact them again in relatio to this, Even tho we have an eircom landline !!!Them , on xmas eve, when our road was snowed in, an eircom truck arrived, to plant a new pole on our land, to lay a wire across our garden to a new house built on land behind ours, without so much as a bye or leave ! This company is unreal, the sheer cheek they have, but what i want to know is, can i refuse them permission to plant a pole in my land, or to put a wire across my land? Sorry for making this so long, but Eircom have managed to annoy me like no other utility company EVER
PS Merry Christmas

DeepBlue

newcavanman wrote: »

but what i want to know is, can i refuse them permission to plant a pole in my land, or to put a wire across my land?

I'm not 100% on this but I think that you can't refuse them.
Or put it another way they have the right to put poles where they want. Afaik the ESB have the same right.
I imagine that otherwise everyone would be objecting to poles all over the place and nobody would get telecoms or electricity if it even slightly inconvenienced their neighbours.

The ESB were doing some modification/repairs to a couple of poles on our land some months ago and gave plenty of notice by post of when they would be there, for how long etc.
Do eircom not give any notification?

Edit: Oops, I guess I was wrong.
Well, I did say I wasn't 100% sure of it.

MunsterCycling

Only the ESB have universal right of access, eircom have no such right and their actions in this case have been trespass. ESB can plant a pole in the middle of your garden should they wish but the twats at eircon can't scratch their arse without permission.

Its chainsaw time if the pole was installed OP, they make nice garden features!

OP always take names and times when you speak to the goons in eircon, and make sure they know your doing it by mentioning their name multiple times.

MC

GigaByte

A similar thing happened to my parents. They went away on holiday and came back to find UPC had bollted on a cable to the back of their house running the lenght of the back garden over the wall on to another house with out asking! This is an old estate where the cables are all above ground, they left the old one up there as well. Are they allowed to do this without permission?

My Dad is not happy at all. :mad:

dub45

newcavanman wrote: »

i live 2 miles outside Cootehill, in county Cavan . we have lived here for 3 years and were told from square one by eircom that we could not have BB . We got 3mobile, which is adequate, but not great . Imagine my surpirse 2 months ago when my neighbour invited me in to see his new Perlico BB . I was stunned, so i rang perlico, who said i needed to contact eircom , to cut a long story short, i got an email from eircom telling me that i was not to contact them again in relatio to this, Even tho we have an eircom landline !!!Them , on xmas eve, when our road was snowed in, an eircom truck arrived, to plant a new pole on our land, to lay a wire across our garden to a new house built on land behind ours, without so much as a bye or leave ! This company is unreal, the sheer cheek they have, but what i want to know is, can i refuse them permission to plant a pole in my land, or to put a wire across my land? Sorry for making this so long, but Eircom have managed to annoy me like no other utility company EVER
PS Merry Christmas

Comreg should be able to give you full details on this.

dub45

GigaByte wrote: »

A similar thing happened to my parents. They went away on holiday and came back to find UPC had bollted on a cable to the back of their house running the lenght of the back garden over the wall on to another house with out asking! This is an old estate where the cables are all above ground, they left the old one up there as well. Are they allowed to do this without permission?

My Dad is not happy at all. :mad:

Again Comreg should be able to give you full details on this but I doubt very much if they are entitled to behave this way but given UPC's fascist tendencies
I am not in the slightest bit surprised at their actions.

Wcool

While Eircon's action is ****e, maybe make it a bargaining position. You want BB, they want to run a cable over your land. Maybe you can work something out?

Isaac702

GigaByte wrote: »

Are they allowed to do this without permission?

If there were existing cables there they have a right of way and can make alterations to the cables if they wish.

At least this is my understanding of this. I could be wrong.

From what I have read elsewhere UPC are generally understanding about it. Although they wont remove the cables (unless you want to fight a battle) they may give you a discount on there service.

Automator

Wcool is bang on. You need to use this situation as a bargaining tool but it would have been easier before the pole was erected. Eircom have the right to put the pole there only if it is replacing an existing pole. Otherwise they must get wayleave permission from the landowner. This is most likely down to the planner not checking who owned the land. If you had stopped the installation of the pole then you would get their attention. As for a wire crossing your land...if the poles were not on your land but the wire is crossing over then you only have a case if the wire is too low or interfering in some way.

If you dont want the pole there and you dont mind upsetting your neighbour then you should demand its removed. As for perlico, they use eircom lines so if you ever did get BB and its with perlico and you have a problem then you will ahve more red tape with 2 utility companies. Ask a friend/relative to check online if your phone number can facilitate BB. This can be checked on the Eircom website. Otherwise check with a local eircom linesman if Cootehill exchange is broadband enabled. If it is then you should be able to get 7M/b BB.

Best of luck.

Sponge Bob

Chainsaw

They will negotiate next time.

GigaByte

Isaac702 wrote: »

If there were existing cables there they have a right of way and can make alterations to the cables if they wish.

At least this is my understanding of this. I could be wrong.

From what I have read elsewhere UPC are generally understanding about it. Although they wont remove the cables (unless you want to fight a battle) they may give you a discount on there service.

There is an old cable up there but they've put up another new one. To put the new one up they've bolted on a steel cable onto the back of my parents house and run a new black cable along that. It now looks like two ugly ESB cables there. They didn't touch the old cable, I'll be out there tomorrow so I'll take a picture and post it up here.


EDIT: In fact there has been no contact from UPC about this cable so for all I know it might be some other company?!?!?!

DingDong

GigaByte wrote: »

There is an old cable up there but they've put up another new one. To put the new one up they've bolted on a steel cable onto the back of my parents house and run a new black cable along that. It now looks like two ugly ESB cables there. They didn't touch the old cable, I'll be out there tomorrow so I'll take a picture and post it up here.


EDIT: In fact there has been no contact from UPC about this cable so for all I know it might be some other company?!?!?!

Gigabyte If it was UPC your folks should have got a card in their door a week or two before hand with all the details(replacing old cables etc) and a help line number. The old cables will be removed when the new system is live and it should look alot better than previously after strip down, plus all the new services should be available to them.

Sponge Bob

If the old cable is there over 10 years then UPC have _some_ class of wayleave

Freddie59

dub45 wrote: »

Again Comreg should be able to give you full details on this but I doubt very much if they are entitled to behave this way but given UPC's fascist tendencies
I am not in the slightest bit surprised at their actions.

And you have no similar opinion about Eircom's action?

Isaac702

DingDong wrote: »

If it was UPC your folks should have got a card in their door a week or two before hand with all the details(replacing old cables etc) and a help line number.

This may not necessarily be correct. When UPC were replacing the cables along my road none of the houses were given notice of it in any form.

However this was quite a while ago and there procedures could have changed since then.

DingDong

Isaac702 wrote: »

This may not necessarily be correct. When UPC were replacing the cables along my road none of the houses were given notice of it in any form.

However this was quite a while ago and there procedures could have changed since then.

Yes procedures has changed, a card drop is now standard.

GigaByte

DingDong wrote: »

Gigabyte If it was UPC your folks should have got a card in their door a week or two before hand with all the details(replacing old cables etc) and a help line number. The old cables will be removed when the new system is live and it should look alot better than previously after strip down, plus all the new services should be available to them.

As far as I know there was no card drop, even if there was they were away in Spain for about a month when this happened. You can see in the 2 pictures below that the old cable is still there and this was done around end october start of november. Now I don't know how legal it is to be drilling holes into there house while they are away without permission but I do know that my dad did send off a letter and didn't get a reply. My parents or either of their neighbours don't have UPC.

Sponge Bob

I assume they will remove the old cable ...which looks a lot tattier than the new cable. The steel yokes are there to tense the new cable which is well installed with no lumps taken out of the wall.

But they followed the wayleave the obviously had already....based on the positioning of the old cable. Mind you they should have given him a drop ( junction box) too.

GigaByte

Sponge Bob wrote: »

I assume they will remove the old cable ...which looks a lot tattier than the new cable. The steel yokes are there to tense the new cable which is well installed with no lumps taken out of the wall.

But they followed the wayleave the obviously had already....based on the positioning of the old cable. Mind you they should have given him a drop ( junction box) too.

Yeah but why did they have to put a hole in the roof?

Sponge Bob

GigaByte wrote: »

Yeah but why did they have to put a hole in the roof?

pic please, cannot see a hole 'in' the roof

GigaByte

Sponge Bob wrote: »

pic please, cannot see a hole 'in' the roof

Sorry I forgot to edit that. If you look directly above where they drilled into the wall there's a hole in the roof but I asked my dad and he said that was already there

Anyway what I'm trying to clarify is if they can just drill into your home and put up "another" cable without any permission.

GigaByte

DingDong wrote: »

Gigabyte If it was UPC your folks should have got a card in their door a week or two before hand with all the details(replacing old cables etc) and a help line number. The old cables will be removed when the new system is live and it should look alot better than previously after strip down, plus all the new services should be available to them.

I don't think my dad would have minded but there's no letter saying anything about taking the old cables down. This was done 2 months ago and he sent off a letter as well and still no reply??

DingDong

It could of been they missed your Dads house with a card drop. I do understand he would of liked to contacting first. I take it your dad lives in south east Dublin some of these areas are proving difficult to re-cable so things are moving slower than expected. The old cables will be removed as soon as possible. At least they didn't stick a pole in his garden .

GigaByte

DingDong wrote: »

At least they didn't stick a pole in his garden .

Thats true, lol!

The area is Portmarnock so maybe they'll soon be able to get UPC broadband. That may ease his pain

DingDong

GigaByte wrote: »

Thats true, lol!

The area is Portmarnock so maybe they'll soon be able to get UPC broadband. That may ease his pain

Portmarnock should be almosts finished now at this stage bar the trouble spots.

Sponge Bob

Gigabyte, I am saying that UPC have a permanent wayleave for their network once the cable is there 10 or 15 years and they followed the route of the old cable with the new cable and did a clean job from what i can see. All legally above board.

Had they knocked lumps out of everything in sight it would be different of course. Not removing the tatty old cable is not on, you can do that yourself if you want

They did not show up installing poles on your land for other peoples benefit , and with no permission, after refusing flat out to provide DSL ...like eircom did.

newcavanman

Well lads, thanks for the feedback, further to what one poster said, i didnt particularly want to change to another provider, just get Eircom to treat us with a bit of respect . Part of the annoyance is that when we built our house we had to provide ducting along the whole site for them to pipe the previously pole arrangement underground, but now they stick a pole up, halfway along our site anyway . I know our local exchange is BB enabled but an Eircom linesman explained the way the BB system is checked .What happens is that once a month an automatic check is done, say at 3am, on a tuesday nite, all lines in exchange are checked. When you ring Eircom, or anyone else, they offer to run a line check for you, BUT they are not checking the line, merely checking Eircoms database . What i wanted was to try to talk to someone in Eircom who actually knows what they are talking about in relation to BB, not some minimum wage dope who is only interested in selling me one package or another . I am begining to think i will have to do as others suggested and get the chainsaw out, one of the things about living in the countryside, you tend to have one in your garage !!!

thefinalstage

newcavanman wrote: »

Well lads, thanks for the feedback, further to what one poster said, i didnt particularly want to change to another provider, just get Eircom to treat us with a bit of respect . Part of the annoyance is that when we built our house we had to provide ducting along the whole site for them to pipe the previously pole arrangement underground, but now they stick a pole up, halfway along our site anyway . I know our local exchange is BB enabled but an Eircom linesman explained the way the BB system is checked .What happens is that once a month an automatic check is done, say at 3am, on a tuesday nite, all lines in exchange are checked. When you ring Eircom, or anyone else, they offer to run a line check for you, BUT they are not checking the line, merely checking Eircoms database . What i wanted was to try to talk to someone in Eircom who actually knows what they are talking about in relation to BB, not some minimum wage dope who is only interested in selling me one package or another . I am begining to think i will have to do as others suggested and get the chainsaw out, one of the things about living in the countryside, you tend to have one in your garage !!!

You expect knowledge for minimum wage? You are living in a dream world plus the sales people get commission on each sale which is why they don't wanna discuss the finer points. There attitude is time is money and I hate that... I do agree with the chainsaw, Post some pics of it when its down?

The simple answer is the agent probably only has access to the Data base. Which is muck...

newcavanman

i know thats why i get the runaround from these clowns, ut they should have access to someone who knows what they are talkingabout. If they can satisfy me, they have me as a likely long term customer . No matter what is said very few people actually change companyunless there is a very very tempting offer, and irish people being irish, even that might not be enough