Telco cable damage disputes almost double

By Ry Crozier on Dec 7, 2010 6:18 AM
Filed under Telco/ISP

TIO forced to mediate.

The Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman (TIO) was forced to mediate almost twice the number of disputes over damage to a telco's cables or assets in the past year.

The number of cases the TIO categorised as "damage caused by complainant to a supplier's cable or telecommunications facility" rose from 176 in 2008-9 to 324 in 2009-10.

It represented an 84 percent rise in the incidence of those issues year-on-year, and continued growth during the past four years, according to the TIO's latest annual report.

The report did not explain why the incidence of damage had increased; however, disputes were understood to stem from alleged failures to check the locations of cables before digging, allegedly incorrect advice on the location and position of cables, and from damages bills served by telcos.

A TIO spokesman declined to comment on the reasons, saying the ombudsman's role wasn't to pass judgment but to "examine the circumstances and offer a right of appeal".

"We offer an alternative dispute resolution mechanism so a mediated outcome can be reached," the spokesman told iTnews. "We try to find an agreement between the two parties in that situation".

Preventing damage

Dial Before You Dig chief Carlos Campino told iTnews that he could not comment on whether the incidence of damage to telco cables had increased in the past year.

While it was possible that increased construction activity funded by governments to ward off the global financial crisis could have caused a jump in the number of cases of damage being reported, Campino cautioned that Dial Before You Dig did not collect these types of statistics, although it was in the process of developing a tool that could.

Rather, Campino said that Dial Before You Dig's statistics showed the ratio of inquiries to incidents had improved in the couple of years.

"We're getting good at preventing damage from occurring," he said.

Dial Before You Dig said on its website that the likelihood of coming across underground assets whilst excavating was "increasing".

It claimed to have seen a "wide variety of accidents and disruptions from excavators unwittingly digging up underground assets."

"If you negligently damage underground pipes or cables you may be faced with criminal prosecution and significant damages claims," it said.

"Commercial damages from businesses unable to function have been known to run into millions of dollars."

The TIO report also saw a slight increase in complaints over the "failure to give notice before accessing land for the installation and/or maintenance of a low-impact telecommunications facility."

However, there were improvements in other complaint areas related to land access.

Significantly, the number of complaints filed about "damage by a provider to a property during the installation of a cable or a low-impact telecommunications facility" fell from 572 to 439 in the past financial year.

Telco cable damage disputes almost double

4 comments in this discussion

"To make comments like this without the data to back them up simply annoys me. How can you have a valued discussion on such an important issue. In my area of Sydney Telstra's cables are underground ..."

By Francis

Tags

telecommunications, fibre, cable, damage, dispute, tio, ombudsman

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Comments: 4

Gall of it Dec 7, 2010 8:16 AM	Gee could it be maybe the largest Network upgrade we have ever seen called NBN ? THey are probably opening pit that have not been open for years ,traversving the country with new lines, and not the regular telecos doing it but contractors.
realitybites Dec 7, 2010 10:12 AM	@Gall of it - I dunno, that's maybe drawing a long bow blaming it on the NBN roll out. Maybe in 3 - 5 years it would be a valid comparison but I think it's a bit early yet to draw that conclusion. I will say however that the TIO has a window of opportunity here, before the NBN gets into full stride, to get all their systems and procedures organized and in place. Once we have fibre running all over the place we will see a huge jump in these sort of incidents.
Francis Dec 7, 2010 12:18 PM	This is typical as the reason why we must have no more than one wholesale service provider in this country is that given our land mass and relatively small population competition does not work, all it does is duplicate an already existing network and by doing so increase the amount of wasteful underutilised of capacity which will only drive costs and prices up.SO INSTEAD OF COMPETITION WE NEED ECONOMIES OF SCALE". On top of that we have the cherrypickers who only service the most profitable areas driving up costs and chargers to universal providers like Telstra which one way or the other disadvantages their customers either through service or cost. To be even handed any second network must be required by law or regulation to fully duplicate the Geographical spread of the main network or universal supplier. But as pointed out earlier this will only result in wasteful duplication. Hopefully this will be the end of the argument.
Francis Dec 7, 2010 1:05 PM	To make comments like this without the data to back them up simply annoys me. How can you have a valued discussion on such an important issue. In my area of Sydney Telstra's cables are underground but terminate on electricity poles from where they are then strung overhead to the "Premises".This situation a few years ago resulted in me while suffering from sever chest pains not being able to dial "000" for an ambulance as just up around the corner a vehicle had hit a power pole effectively cutting both my Land Lines as well as my Telstra cable connection thereby and cutting my VoIP Connection.To make matters worse I also live in a poor reception area for mobiles, this resulted in me having to walk out into the middle of the road while in some considerable pain and distress to call an ambulance. This brings me to Fibre. If we are going to the trouble of building a Fibre Network the fibre should be buried to overcome problems as outlined above plus issues associated with storm and Tempest, bush fires etc. which brings us to the point of what happens if someone digs up the cable. The problem here is that there are no universally recognised standard as to where and how deep the various services should be. Using Horizontal Directional Drilling techniques there is no reason why the cable could not be say 1 to 1.5 meters deep or even deeper and only coming to the surface at or near a connection point or pit. Other Technologies such as Micro Trenching should be given a wide berth as it can not bury the cable deep enough to give it the protection it requires. It is about time the veil of secrecy was lifted on this whole NBN Project and some rational thought be given to these issues to ensure its reliability and not built to the lowest cost or cheap and nasty, as this will only lead to higher maintenance cost and lack of reliability.