NBI installed a public box on my property 800ish metres down a private laneway, looking for advice.

Fluppen

Hi all,

In brief. Can NBI install a public box on private land without a wayleave agreement? Can I ask for a guarantee that no more lines will be brought 800m into the centre of my private property and back out to the road to connect houses that are right by the road? for full details see below.

Several years ago I was delighted to see NBI working in the area, then to my surprise a crew came all the way down my lane right up to my house. I was surprised and asked if that was normal, they said "no, but that's what's on my map" and they proceeded to install an overhead cable and box. I didn't think much more of it and assumed that was how they were connecting farmyards. 6 months later I still couldn't get a connection but a neighbour who has right of way over my land approached me and said he had requested a connection and had been told he would have to connect to the box at the end of my lane. We both scratched our heads at the oddness of having to run a line all the way back up my lane to split off to where his lane crosses my land but I didn't object as he is far from the road too and had no other fixed line option. At this point i still couldn't get a connection from that same box myself.

Another 5 or so months later a crew suddenly appears on a piece of shared laneway which I don't own but have right of way over. I asked them what they were doing and they said they were installing bigger ducting so that a house by the road could get fibre broadband. I asked why they were coming up the lane and they said that the active public box was the box which was on my lane by the house and yard, this is over 800m from the road into the centre of my Land. These guys parked their diggers on my land and left my gates open without asking any kind of permission. At this point I became worried and started calling and emailing NBI with questions. a few weeks later I walked down my lane to find a wire laid out along the side I immediately contacted NBI again but got no answers. The installers didn't seem to have any intent to ask for permission to work on my private property so I put a sign in the middle of the laneway stating that there was no access without the owners permission. This worked and they walked down the lane to tell me that they were installing an overhead wire to connect a house by the road and that the box on my propety was a public box and that is where they were going to connect. I am a coward and hate confrontation so I let them. I am still emailing and calling NBI and to date the only solid answer they ever gave is that the property owner is responsible for maintaining the line/hedgerow and trees under the line.

As a result of the above I now have 3 overhead fibre lines running for about 650 meters alongside my lane connecting to a box about 20m from my house. the total length of the cables that were run is over 800 metres as there is a section in underground ducting just before it reaches the road. None of these wires are of any benefit to me as I have wireless broadband.

Ideally I would like NBI to move that box so it is no longer my problem and makes more sense for any new connections that might need to be made. At the very least there should be some sort of wayleave agreement so that I have it on paper that there will be no more connections and that it is up to NBI to maintain their own line, even if they probably mistakenly placed a public box on a private lane.

Any advice would be gratefully received, thanks for reading it all if you got this far.

heavydawson

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058287089/nbi-installed-a-public-box-on-my-property-800ish-metres-down-a-private-laneway-looking-for-advice

Sounds very odd indeed. NBI use OpenEir's pole infrastructure. I'm not sure if any new poles belong to NBI themselves or its OpenEir adding to their own infrastructure to support NBI.

This is an NBI document pertaining to pole placement:

http://www.rmo.ie/uploads/8/2/1/0/821068/msd_bld_007_nbi_pole_guidelines_p1_4_170621.pdf

Within that document, there's a table towards the end:

So it looks like they may have placed the pole there due to the roadside verge being an issue. However that was subject to your consent.

heavydawson

More generally, just to say you've been very accommodating about it. I believe the max connections they can take off a single DP (the name for the box) is 4. So you'll at worst have 6 lines in total split going in either direction from the pole.

I'd be inclined to bypass NBI and try and contact the RMO:

https://www.rmo.ie/contact.html

, saying you believe the pole was installed in violation of Section 254 of the Planning and Development Act 2000. You can say you've no problem with the pole, but not in its current location.

Get on to your local County Council as well, as they would have been the ones issuing the license.

The Cush

For clarification, were the poles already in place or did they have to install new poles?

Also, what does the NBI eircode checker indicate for your house?

Fluppen

Hi,

Thanks for the replies. The seven overhead poles they used to run the wire through my land to the box were already in place holding an unused phone line. All they did was run a wire and install a box. I was there when they installed the box so I suppose that implies consent, although I believed and was allowed to believe that it was a box just for me and not a public box.

I gave separate permission for new poles to be placed through my fields alongside a right of way to connect the neighbour who needs to cross my land to access his property. That still required a wire to come about 600m overhead back towards the road before turning into the field.

A house that's by the road getting connected to a box 800m from the road is what really seems wrong.

The installers told me they could connect up to 12 properties on the box located on my land and that was confirmed in an email from NBI. Can you imagine the insanity of that? The sheer wastage of cable and labour to run the distance back out to the road with each of those possible connections.

The more I think about it the more I believe someone mapped it wrong and everyone just follows the map blindly.