National Broadband Ireland : implementation and progress

So I have an install coming up next week. I got a new pole installed yesterday beside a ducting that will run right into my network rack. The duct right now is not fixed to the pole. Should I do any work ahead of the install to fix duct to the pole, or will that all be taken care of on the day by the installer?

End of duct is right beside the pole and will run about a meter up it. But I defintely want to fix it, so wondering if I should just do it or will the installers

Interesting. Numbers well down all right. They have started a referral scheme recently probably to try push up their numbers.

Is there any way to get in touch with NBI and discuss an installation?

My neighbour, who is my tenant and whose house I own got fibre installed by NBI. We live down a private heavily wooded lane about 800 metres from the road. Because I am the landowner, I had long discussions with the NBI engineer, and it was decided to run a surface duct along the ditch beside the lane. Poles were a no go due to all the trees, which engineer agreed with. I had ordered fibre through Digiweb for my house around the same time, but the engineer had no record of this, he was only interested in the tenant house, but he was made aware that we were also looking for fibre.

So the installers came, and spent a long day laying the cable from the road up to the tenants house. When they heard that I was also looking to get fibre, and potentially also another house further up the lane, they were a bit surprised that they were not installing multi-cable(?) and a distribution box. Anyway, fibre works great in tenant's house, and didn't cost a cent to us.

After hearing nothing for months, got on to Digiweb for an update on what is happening for my house, I heard yesterday that NBI are looking for a contribution from me of € 7,696.74 to run surface duct and fibre up from the road. Which is a bit of a no go. The man from Digiweb was apologetic but said there was nothing they could do about it.

Any ideas how I would get in touch with NBI to discuss this. We had no engineer visit or consultation, bar the first one for the tenant. I am prepared to make some contribution, but not €7,500 when my neighbour got it for free.

I live in a farmyard 800m up from the road where the fibre is, a lane runs up through a wood to get to us from the road. The tenant's house is right beside the yard, about 50m from my own house.

Yes, I am considering doing my own duct work, but it will still cost a couple of thousand at least I think - ducting isn't cheap from what I can see. Don't want to go down this route unless I have to, especially when tenant/neighbour got it all done for free.

I am also considering just running a gigabit network cable from tenant's house to mine with routers/switches, and sharing cost of biggest bandwidth we can get. Not ideal, haven't discussed this with them yet!

Phone line hasn't been used in years, used to get DSL but every time there was a storm, a branch or tree would come down and knock the line. Line also used to rub and wear against trees. We are using Aptus wireless now, 50mb which is okish, but big downloads etc seem to get throttled.

Yes, definite privacy concerns etc with neighbour. Probably a non-runner, just a thought.

Think it is a inch or inch and a quarter ducting pipe that is just lying on the ground on top of the ditch, with a couple of joiner/junction boxes screwed to trees. Only buried where it crosses a gate. Looks like a water pipe. The more I look at it, the more unprofessional it looks. Definitely didn't cost €7500 to do that.