Rudman's city: Tangled telco finds vision and reality are poles apart

By BRIAN RUDMAN

Australian telco giant TelstraSaturn had hoped to start stringing its hideous black cables through Auckland suburbia two months ago.

That was the plan anyway, back in September when it unveiled its programme for a $550 million, citywide fibre-optic cable network.

Luckily for those of us who want to preserve the skyscape, it was nothing but a pipe dream.

So far, not a metre of the cable has been draped from a suburban power pole and, with a bit of luck, none ever will be.

If that does come to pass, the Aussies have no one to blame but themselves.

For in their haste to get Auckland online, TelstraSaturn seems to have forgotten one or two basics.

The most crucial one was whether it had the rights to the poles it wanted to hang its wires from.

The other was whether the Auckland City Council would let it.

The answer to both is far from certain.

First, access to poles. Auckland streets are lined with two varieties - those of TelstraSaturn's rival, Telecom, and the ones owned by power line company Vector.

For rather obvious reasons we can put Telecom to one side. That leaves Vector.

Some years ago, TelstraSaturn's predecessor, Saturn, came to some sort of agreement with Vector's predecessor, Mercury, over the use of its power poles.

No one is talking now, but it seems TelstraSaturn arrived in Auckland last September believing that access deal was still valid. My understanding is that Vector takes a different view.

TelstraSaturn's communications manager, Quentin Bright, tells me: "We have an existing pole attachment agreement" about which "we've had a number of discussions with Vector."

Asked if it is still current, he paused a while before saying, "Yep."

Over at Vector, chief executive Patrick Strange refuses to comment.

Pauline Winter, chairwoman of the Auckland Energy Consumer Trust, which owns Vector, is equally unforthcoming. But my information is that Vector has told TelstraSaturn it does not consider itself bound by the previous deal.

Given the energy trust's recent pledge to Auckland City, Manukau City and Papakura District that it will, among other things, "resume a well-planned programme to underground powerlines," it seems fair to assume that Vector is not about to willingly rent its poles out to other users.

This setback for TelstraSaturn comes on top of Auckland City's insistence that the company needed a resource consent.

TelstraSaturn seems to have thought it could sail into Auckland like it did in Wellington, get a quick nod from city officials, and start draping.

Auckland planners say it is not "a permitted activity" in this part of the country to drape new wires overhead where existing telecom and electricity wires are underground. This covers just about all of Auckland City's suburbia.

TelstraSaturn has conceded the point and is preparing resource-consent applications. But these, says Mr Bright, will not be filed until mid-year.

My guess is that there's not much point in filing for consents if you don't have any poles to play with.

And if the Aussie telco didn't have enough problems in Auckland, its Wellington opponents filed papers in the Environment Court on Thursday alleging that the company has not only breached the terms of its certificate of compliance from the Wellington City Council, but that the certificate itself breached the district plan.

Overhead telecommunications cables first began blighting Wellington's skies in the early 1990s.

These were on the Kapiti Coast. In 1995, they started to criss-cross Wellington suburbia, spoiling views and upsetting residents.

In late 1999, the Coalition of Residents Associations complained to the Environment Court, which suggested mediation between the associations, the city council and TelstraSaturn.

The coalition's president, John Shrapnell, tells me that that has all been a waste of time and it's back to the court.

For the Wellington objectors, it is now a matter of opposing a fait accompli. In Auckland we have the advantage of being able to block the eyesore before it begins. We seem to be off to a good start.

Hopefully, TelstraSaturn will get the message - either go underground or go home.