NSW Property Law - Responsibility to the NBN Box?

It really depends on the nature of your agreement with the Landlord. You would need to find something in your lease agreement that entitles you to rely on the landlord to take care of the NBN box in your agreement with them. The building manager has nothing to do with your agreement with the landlord, so frankly whatever he says cannot be used as legal argument of your rights.

But is the price of a battery really worth the bother?

 

This is still a developing area. The equipment will have been supplied by the NBN reseller to either the previous tenant or the landlord.

If it is the landlord who obtained the equipment he may be responsible. Need to look at your tenancy agreement. It may be the landlord's equipment but not part of your tenancy agreement, in which case it is arguable as to who should pay.

If it was a previous tenant that arranged the installation and equipment, then the landlord can say not mine and nothing to do with me.

If the landlord denies it is his equipment, replace battery yourself and take it with you when you leave.

 

I agree, if it's not specifically provided for in the lease, and no clause in the lease covers it, it is up for argument.

 

After signing a lease and moving into a property, it's up to the landlord to maintain the property within reasonable expectation of the tenant as assumed working when they moved in. Just remember phone is not a necessity but the landlord however must maintain water, electricity and gas to a property.

if you moved into a property and identified a phone socket on the wall (or in this case NBN's NTD equipment) you, as a potential renter when inspecting the property would assume the phone socket is in good working condition and suffice for transmitting phone signal across the cabling. If the wall socket is faulty, not allowing signalling to transmit over it, the landlord should be liable for cost of repairs.

Renters these days are actually choosing to lease premises with NBN FTTH fitted due to the fact it's much more reliable than ADSL or VDSL NBN technology. In the telecommunications world there is whats called a Network Boundary Point (NBP) to where the ISP must guarantee and maintain a good working connection.There is different Network Boundary points dependant on the property type and technology used to get there.


Where does the ISP responsibility end?

Technology:

Telephone Service (POTS) or ADSL/VDSL (NBN) within a stand alone house = First Wall Socket (or joint within the lead-in cable).

Telephone Service (POTS) or ADSL/VDSL (NBN) within an apartment MDU = Main Distribution Frame (MDF)

FTTH (Fibre delivered to the NTD BOX) within a stand alone house = NTD

FTTH (Fibre delivered to the NTD BOX) within an apartment = NTD

*All cabling beyond these points are deemed internal customer side cabling and will be the responsibility of the owner to maintain.

** Should a wall socket be present on the wall, the owner would be required to maintain the property for a working phone signal, and not required to repair should the fault relate to an internet speed or drop out issue.

Should the battery backup have failed, the tenant could argue a medical condition, or (back to base) alarm system that requires the use of a battery backup. Failure to provide the battery backup could be potentially life threatening.

If the tenant doesn't have these conditions, having a battery backup is pointless, because if you incur a blackout and assuming you don't have a Tesla powerwall battery backup installed in your premises - none of your devices will work anyway.

Best suggestion moving forward for you, as this is still grey area with the multiple NBN technologies, is to apply common sense to the situation, by either disconnecting the battery backup (disabling) or contacting your local telephone technician to see if they can shed some light on the situation.

 

I think one question this raises is, Who actually owns the NBN equipment installed by NBN Co? It should be this companies responsibility to maintain this equipment, after all, they installed it, were you given the opportunity to say no to a battery backup being installed?

 

Not necessarily. I believe battery backup is an optional extra (it used to be, haven't checked lately), in which case it may not be NBN's responsibility. Need to look at the terms of the original installation agreement.

 

I just spoke to NBN, they advised me that they will warrant the battery for 24 months from date of install, mine has failed outside this so it's up to me, BUT, DID the ISP offer me the option of battery backup or not when the order was being placed, that is another issue, people need to be clear that they can choose to have it or not. NBN when install based on this info from the ISP.