Rudman's city: Firms in rental agreement poles apart on city clutter

By BRIAN RUDMAN

Hard on the heels of Vector's announcement that it plans to bury its remaining overhead power cables comes depressing signals from telecommunications giant TelstraSaturn.

It wants to add to Auckland's wirescape pollution, not reduce it, and it's gone off to the High Court to make it happen.

TelstraSaturn wants a court order forcing Vector to let it hang its ugly black cables from the line company's poles.

And to underline its determination, to say nothing of its downright cockiness, TelstraSaturn is proceeding on other fronts as though it has won the court tussle. It has simultaneously lodged the first of 12 resource consent applications with Auckland City Council, seeking the green light for a five-year programme to connect every street in Auckland to its fibre-optic network.

The Australian telco is telling the council it plans to build its network "underground wherever the power company network is already underground" and to hang it from poles "where the power company has existing aerial infrastructure."

Communications manager Quentin Bright told the Tamaki Community Board last week that the cables would hang 30cm below the lowest existing cable. The only silver lining is that when the power company finally decides to take a street underground, TelstraSaturn is willing to share costs. But with Vector talking of a burial programme stretching over 40 years, that's an awful lot of waiting.

Neither side is talking about the court action, but apparently the Australian telco has applied for an order of specific performance against Vector. In common parlance that means TelstraSaturn wants Vector to honour a deal it struck with Vector's ill-fated predecessor Mercury Energy in 1996.

The deal is similar to deals reached with power companies in Wellington and Christchurch at the same time by TelstraSaturn's predecessor Saturn. The telco is arguing the deal gives it access to Vector's network of poles, which it vitally needs if it is to achieve its goal of rapidly draping the region with its cables.

The current Vector management and consumer trust owners are aghast that they could have inherited any such deal and want out.

Committed to a policy of burying their own power lines for environmental reasons, they find it less than amusing that another utility is now claiming rights to their poles in order to add further clutter to the city wirescape.

To rub salt into the wounds, the pole rental arrangement struck by the old Mercury bosses is very advantageous to the telco.

Vector has yet to file a defence, but it is expected to go something like this.

When Saturn and Mercury signed their deal in 1996, there was an escape clause for Mercury in the event of Saturn changing hands. Mercury gained the right to terminate the contract if, before the change of control, Saturn did not consult Mercury and get its approval for the change of control. This enabled Mercury the chance to terminate the contract if it had concerns about the financial stability or the technical competency of the people it was to share its poles with.

Vector claims its consent was not obtained before the formal merger of Saturn with Telstra on April 6, 2000, therefore the contract was null and void.

Vector apparently wrote to Telstra- Saturn soon after the merger "terminating" the contract on these grounds. Telstra- Saturn rejects this, saying there were discussions at the time of the merger. The court will have to decide whether permission was sought and obtained during these discussions and if not, whether it needed to be.

For environmental reasons, I can't help hoping the court sees it Vector's way. The thought of Auckland suburbia being garlanded with the ugly black cables that now blight much of Wellington suburbia just doesn't bear thinking about.

Already well established in Wellington and Christchurch, TelstraSaturn has still got formidable obstacles to overcome in Auckland. Even if it were to win the right to use Vector's poles - and this is one time I wouldn't squawk too loudly if the case got dragged off through the appeal process - it has to get through the various city council consent processes.

First port of call is Auckland City, where the telco plans to begin its suburban rollout in Penrose-Onehunga.

Council officials have already indicated the need for a notified hearing. Given the widespread opposition to existing overhead wires, it's likely to be a long haul.

Of course, if TelstraSaturn fails to gain access to Vector's poles, the resource consent process could prove superfluous. The company has already indicated that the five to eight times multiplication of costs for setting up an underground network is likely to kill the whole project.