A Northland motel owner says he's fed up with Chorus workers who show up, eat their lunch, then disappear again - without installing his fibre internet.
Chorus fibre broadband installation. File photo Photo: RNZ
Oliver Rutland said he's been waiting for six months for fibre to be installed at the Anchorage Motel in Paihia.
He said about four separate teams have visited over a six-month period without any information or the right tools to complete the job.
He's made five 16-hour return trips from Ohakune to meet contractors, due to Chorus' requirement of staff to be onsite to meet technicians.
"It's taking all this time and effort and six months to get simple things done, it's incredibly stressful," he said.
"When you just keep hitting the same bump over and over again and you try and talk to people about it and see what you can do to solve it, and nothing changes, that's where it gets to this point where it's incredibly frustrating."
The business had suffered from slow internet, which added to the strain for Rutland.
"At the moment our machines, when we're running our booking systems, are incredibly slow and sometimes they freeze up."
"We're providing poor experiences to our guests because the guests don't get very good wifi."
Rutland said the problem was wider than just his motel - he said a number of people he had spoke to were dealing with the same delays.
"It's not just us, it's all the other people that seem to be getting frustrated by this as well," he said.
"Things usually take three or four visits instead of getting knocked out in one or two."
Rutland said he had liaised repeatedly with his broadband provider, Spark, which had acknowledged the problem and promised to fix it promptly - but each technician visit bore the same problems.
He hadn't received any response from Chorus, two weeks on from complaining.
Chorus head of external communications Steve Pettigrew said the delay was due to a worker shortage in Northland, worsened by Covid-19.
"Chorus owes an apology to the manager, and the owners, of the Anchorage Motel. While the fibre build to a large motel is more complex than a typical residential install, there is no excuse for the delay and challenges they have experienced," he said.
He said the motel owner has been contacted, and that Chorus would get them connected to fibre as quickly as possible.
