Wasteful method by phone company

[jimmyj]

So, we call the phone company because we have really bad interfearance on our home line. A tech comes out and determines that the problem is between the service box at the front of our lot and our house. He says he's going to send a bury crew out to run us a new line (everything is underground at our place). No big deal, there is a main service box for the street across the road and another one on our side of the road for just our house. Luckily the line under the road is OK.

Weeks go by, so we phone to see what the status is. They have no record of his service call so they have to send another guy out. This time I was not there and he did not realize that there was a service box on our side of the road (it's not on their records, I had to show the first guy that it was there). He also determines the line to the house is the problem so he runs a temporary wire from the main service box
-about 350 feet down the ditch on the other side of the road,
-up a utility pole,
-across over the road to the utiity pole on my side that the services run down underground from,
-down that pole,
-across about 60 feet of the lawn to a cedar hedge
-up through the cedar hedge about 100 feet, around the top of the last cedar
-across (over) my laneway to a big tree
-from the big tree over my lane again to another big tree (the lane makes a turn)
-down that tree
-across the lawn to the house

Now today another guy comes and he says he is to mark with paint the bury path for the bury crew who will come soon. I explain the service box situation and show him where the one on my side of the road is. I say "you can probably save a fortune by running the line from this other box like the first tech said." He says, I can only do what is on my plan. He says the box on my lot is not on the documentation so the guy who ran the temp line must have missed it. Away he goes and paints lines all the way along where the tempororary wire is run from the main box.

I have given up, I'll let them do the line where they want because I'm worried if I phone again it will just delay the process. But what a lot of work for one line. Nobody would take the task upon them to make a not of the box on our side of the road either. Now they're probably going to bury 1000 feet of line where 275 would have been enough. One day, the town will come and dig the ditch our and there will go the line probably.

 

[kennyd]

Being that I work (21+ years) for a major communications company, I can say with authority that we are worse than the government sometimes when it comes to doing things efficiently.

 

[Tig]

Jimmy,
My service box is 50' from my front door and I am 1km from the CO yet I can only dream of getting such great service from Ma Bell. I'll spare you the war stories but suffice it to say I am content with my expensive wireless ISP and IP phone service.

 

[jimmyj]

I was surprised at all the attention too Steve. I have a spool of phone wire in the barn and should have just done it myself.

 

[ToadHill]

Sounds like a reason to change to cell service only.

 

[Tig]

Oh Toad the great irony of it all is that I have found that same company to be the best of the cell providers for the areas I travel. So they have my cell business. It's a cruel world.

 

[marimus]

Being that I work (21+ years) for a major communications company, I can say with authority that we are worse than the government sometimes when it comes to doing things efficiently.

We have phone cables running across the front corners of our property, under a railway and through the next door property.

They "missed" their 100' easment by an average of 300', in some places closer to 500'.

The easment runs along the railway and then along what is now a highway.

When they realigned the highway about 25 years ago, they built up a section over where some of those cables are, such that they are now burried some 50' underground.

I hope they never have to repair them

 

[CurlyDave]

Sounds like a reason to change to cell service only.

I can't get fax or internet to work on a cell phone.

 

[MossRoad]

.....

I have given up, I'll let them do the line where they want because I'm worried if I phone again it will just delay the process. But what a lot of work for one line. Nobody would take the task upon them to make a not of the box on our side of the road either. Now they're probably going to bury 1000 feet of line where 275 would have been enough. One day, the town will come and dig the ditch our and there will go the line probably.

Don't you get it? They make more work for themselves ON PURPOSE. The more work they appear to have the more they appear needed. It is just a big scam to keep themselves employed.

 

[SPIKER]

I work for American Augers Inc. we build many large machines and a large part of the business is Directional Drilling, you can park one of our machines by the box and drill under the roads and rivers and come up next to the house and pull in the wire, gas line ect all easy...
too bad the phone companies higher guys with trenchers 99 % of the time to do the work where they have to plan a overland rout.


Mark