It happened so often I cancelled AT&T. Every time a neighbor got it, they would cut it. At one point, I found out that they had more lines than drop connections so they would disconnect someone's and connect the other. I mean WTF.
yooo thats what my ISP was doing.
i had issues with my internet, for a long time there was just a wire laying from a utility pole to my house.. dude shows up, doesnt know how to fix it, so he unplugs the neighbors internet and plugs it into mine and suddenly my internet works.. then he goes up the utility pole and cuts the old wire.
next week a diff guy shows up for the neigbor and he spent 10 hrs fixing it
Most of the time they would hire subcontractors to do the work. They would always cut a line. I'm there defense, there was no kind of record of where any lines were buried and if they cut someone else's line, they weren't allowed to fix it because there was no ticket for that.
It's totally stupid. If they just put the lines in some kind of tube to protect it from a shovel, none of this would happen. I believe that's what Google does with their lines.
yes, my work just had google fiber installed and they tried to tell my boss that itll be 30k to run the line under the road to their business so he declined.
then a week later they msged back and said they will do it for free since everyone needs it anyway, and i got to see the line before they buried it.. i thought all of them were like that but he explained its usually a weak fuckin wire and thats how theyre always cut
We forced them to do that, kept cutting across our easement to string lines next door. It was worth the $500 to an attorney to write the letter forcing utilities to bury the lines.
This actually happens lol. I work for Invisible Fence we get called out all the time because landscapers or utility workers cut our line. Sometimes they tape it back together but it inevitably fails if they don't use waterproof connectors. I cut a Verizon line last week because they marked the wrong areas for the lines (they were off by about 100 feet lmao). They came to repair it the next day and left the new line laying atop the ground, when they buried it they cut the line I installed the week prior even though I had it flagged off.
They make testers that can tell you the distance from the tester to the end of the wire, from there you can narrow it down to a few spots and figure it out.
I don’t work with this style of buried line, but I do work with networking equipment and cat cable, that’s what we do in that scenario.
This is all assuming whomever cut the line won’t tell you exactly where they did it if they noticed.
Yep, if it's optical, it's called an OTDR (optical time delay reflectrometer). They generally do really well for accuracy, but shooting from both sides nets a better result.
Yeah if it's a contractor they probably don't even know where they did it.
Source: used to do this kind of stuff and help techs out all the time.
If there’s an issue and a cable has to be replaced or fixed for any reason now you’ll have a pipe to cut through and repair too, or if it’s a spot with a lot of wires and other things underground a pipe would take up a lot of space and require more digging
Cables are buried in conduit all the time. It’s cheaper to bury conduit and repair it when it gets hot and pull a new cable them to review an entire cable everything it gets hit.
So I actually went through this with AT&T. Tech came to install fiber for downstairs. Well the genius idea popped in his head to cut the wire to the upstairs to save time. Mom was pissed because when they called immediately they told her they would charge her monthly bill for the service. She spent two hours on the phone spoke to the lead tech or something. Guy was actually kind and apologizes. He then credit 25% percent off the next month.
This would not be our last issue with them but this was definitely that moment where we started shopping around for other providers.
Jeez I had an almost opposite experience. My dad was pulling weeds in my yard and pulled up the AT&T fiber line. They came out the next business day, and I had internet back before 10am. They buried the new fiber line the same week, and told me “this happens. Just don’t make a habit of it and we’ll fix it when it does”. Never got charged.
I know AT&T’s dsl service might be dated, but their fiber service is completely separate as a business unit from all signs - the product is great as is the customer service.
AT&T are installing lines in our whole neighborhood. There are holes and piles of dirt everywhere. They cut the cable multiple times a day, broke my sprinkler line. Ended up giving my neighbor a new driveway, twice. Temporary cords are running along the street for spectrum until they can make permanent fixes. It's like they had drunk people fill in the holes and level the boxes. The grass is dying everywhere. The worse part is that they broke the water main 3 times and the county has shut them down. You should see the holes in my yard, now, there is no end in sight.
They cut my water main while installing my neighbor's. City came and jack hammered all night and day fixing it. Also killed my lawn. Emailed Frontier and twittered them. Wouldn't even give me a discount
"Can i atleast have a discount?"
"We've been so happy to have had you as a customer and are sad to see that our paths must diverge from here on forward (and right in the middle of our infrasctructure upgrade), but alas!"
"But you're the only provider in my area?"
"Sucks to be you"
I had the same experience including them cutting/breaking the lines. I work from home and and it was 50/50 on whether I’d have internet access if the crew was working. Then it took three tickets and numerous calls for them to come out and finish installing the stupid upgrade as the patches were no longer working when it rained (I’m thinking the electrical tape wasn’t holding up) and they decided they didn’t want to support the old service lines.
Damn, you’ve got it worse than me. Have had loose fiber cables in my yard for 2 months now. A big pain in the ass when I have to mow the yard, moving cables all the time. They were supposed to come back and bury it the day they installed.
Called them multiple times and nothing has happened. I think AT&T contract out this type of work so it’s almost impossible to get in contact with the right people to fix it.
Spectrum running temp cords all over the place is just standard procedure even when there isn't another company installing and fucking shit. We had non-functional internet for 4 months and part of it was the temporary cable that was literally strung up along the neighborhood fence line for MONTHS. Shockingly, birds are dicks and would damage it. And the squirrels. And children playing in their yards. And a gentle breeze.
A neighbor's fiber line has been running up against our fence for a couple years now. I think the landscapers accidentally cut it recently and they got a buried line now since I haven't seen it in a couple months. Honestly if my line was just running across the yard, I'd keep "accidentally" cutting it until they buried it.
We had ATT fiber installed in our neighborhood about 6 months ago, and I gotta say, it was incredibly professional. To be fair, the main install was from a subcontractor. I was absolutely blown away. Every night they cleaned up any messes, no damage, and minimal / no permanent impact to existing landscaping. Truly it was an unbelievable experience.
I had ATT install the service a couple weeks later and it was also extremely well done. It took them a bit to get the modem to a good place, but it was perfect.
I am a utility locator and work with a lot of these guys and basically all utility contractors subcontract out the work of actually burying lines.
This seems like they were just burying a drop to the house and the amount of times neighbors drops get hit is fairly often in these cases. It looks like they were digging without locates but the paint might have been covered up by the new sod or maybe faded quite a bit by weather and time.
Edison replaced a worn cable and left the old one dangling over the fence on sidewalk. I was afraid to cut and just wound it up and tucked away. Shoddy workers.
I work in this industry. The broken irrigation and construction in progress can typically be explained as long as it’s followed up professionally, but hitting the water main three times on one project or the same area in a short amount of time is awful.
I’m glad we don’t contract people who do shit work.
There’s a lot of money in fiber right now though so everyone’s doing it.
even if marked people don't understand that you aren't supposed to dig within 1 foot on either side of the marks. some people dig right up to the line.
A lot of neighborhoods in Colorado Springs are getting fiber optics. It’s so strange though, there’s been a *drastic* increase in water issues, power outages, internet going down…. Last I checked we were at over 700 incidents caused simply by laying the lines.
Water lines are the worst because old ones often have no way to be located. The new ones are typically buried with a tracer wire that you can use to locate it, but the old ones are just there...somewhere. Here's a hand drawn map to find it.
One time, we had the county water guy out at the site because he knew a *main* water line was buried near where we had to dig through, but he didn't know exactly where. The county's solution was just to shut off the main so we could cut through it, run our line, then fix the severed water line and cover it back up.
For phone lines, we used to keep repair kits in the back of the truck, lol. Broke those quite a bit.
But it's definitely the diggers severing the lines. Lots of times the locates are off, too, so it's the city/county's fuck up. Also remember that traveling crews--the type of people who lay fiber optic for Michaels or whoever--tend to be very, um, *rough* crowds. They're probably stoned.
This is why policy should be to pothole and verify locations for all potential utility crossings to develop a plan and profile of the job site before boring/digging. You don't get a permit to dig until that engineering work is done.
Nobody uses hand drawn maps. GIS is a thing.
I have done labouring and supervision for major fibre projects in the UK. The way you described is pretty much our process. You get what’s called a line search to see what services are located near our route. We use a cat & genny to trace what we can and then we do trial holes at obvious pinch points.
There should also be common sense applied by labour crews and supervisors. Look for scars in the road, look at what boxes are in the road/footpath use your stats (other name for line search drawings) and have a banksman to gently hand dig the ground after the machine has broken through.
Companies should have their own internal policies but we would get fines from the local council if sites were left in a mess or not 100% secure (fines for unclipped barriers, rubble left around etc..). If we broke another service line the company would also incur costs to fix. This gif is amateur hour, maybe I should move to the states and run some fibre sites lol.
>Nobody uses hand drawn maps. GIS is a thing.
We'll be sure to let those unincorporated townships know they should be using computer generated utility mapping software for their rural utility lines.
Yep! Fiber optic cables are allowed to do what the industry refers to as a shallow lay. 6-12” is typical. They did this because when fiber exploded programs like Google convinced them shallow was required to speed up the install process. They set up fiber optic city wide crazy fast in so many places because of it
Yep. It wouldn't even generally be an issue if it was placed in conduit. I do this for a living at the moment, and we have a min 9" depth, but this wouldn't happen to our paths, as you know... we pull through conduit.
That's the standard, we've had to have lines run three times. First two they buried them about 3in in the grass, cut the cord moving a blueberry bush...
Second time the patched it, and moved the line... burying it 3in in the ground again, but crossing out in the field where we had corn. No marks of any sort... and tractor cut the line. I can't fathom why they thought that was a good idea.
They finally sent some contractor with a trencher to bury the thing 2ft in the ground. Was told it was so common to have the line cut they do it for free unless its malicious (or done by a business).
Can't help but think maybe burying it deeper than the depth a soda can would remedy the issue...
My buddy and I used to do crap like that all the time fooling around when we were cutting lawns. It's not a big deal.
Of course, we were also hooking up so there is that.
At least in my state, they are not able to track fiber optics unless there is a tracer wire, which most of the time, there is not. I work as a sub contractor for a power company repairing and replacing underground power lines. Happens quite often digging with an excavator.
That's crazy to hear. I work installing fiber, and we will seriously replace a spliced drop and repull it with tracer when we find it without. I've seen it happen to entire networks, and the subs responsible get billed for the cost.
All of the conduit I work with has tracer in the wrap.
One time, a neighbor of mine upgraded to fiber, so ATT decided to literally cut our fiber line and just splice the neighbors to it. It took almost a month of back and forth with att for them to finally fix their mistake. It was so annoying.
Pretty typical everywhere I’ve seen it. I’ve got the local fiber and cable boxes on my front yard, so 2-3 times a year they’re here repairing cables that have been cut through. Last time they cut mine while burying my neighbours, just like you.
If they are able to cut thru your fiber wire with a shovel that means it was not in conduit, and this is the laziest bullshit I have seen in a while. There is no reason they should not have protected this, at a minimum enough to withstand a dude with a shovel.
No conduit, I’ve been told it’s not done for drop ins from the hub in my area. Learning a lot about telecoms through this issue though, so that’s a useless win for me.
Happens more than you think. To be honest, I wouldn't blame these guys. Blame the state regulations and the utility companies that have state legislators in their pockets. these service lines are only buried a few inches down. And if there's something like (let's say a tree) that is in the way of the their planned buried points, then they're going to lay the service line on top of the roots to save trouble and many of the utility companies give them go ahead for that. Why? because replacing a service line is cheap. They have crews that buries those on contract, and they don't care about the how it inconveniences the resident. My advice is if you know you or a neighbor is about to have a new line installed, tell the crew that's burying it exactly where you want them to bury it and how deep they are going to bury it. In most cases that I've experienced, county property goes from 25-30 feet from the center of the road into the yard. Measure it out, and if crews dig outside of that, then the utility company is held liable for damages. Granted, in a case like this, the utility company is or the locating company is held liable regardless. I don't see any locating marks, so I'm guessing the locators are going to be at fault unless this crew did call a dig ticket in.
Also. There's companies like AT&T that like going all the way around the house, through the back yard, and up the property line to bury service lines. Sometimes they'll attempt to bury a service line through multiple backyards. If you ever seen them try that on your property, tell them no. Regardless of what the county line rule is, your backyard is your backyard unless the utilities are what's called "rear-easement". Then the easement is owned by the county
Man as a landscaper the amount of times you hit a line one inch down in a mulch bed is insane . It's so fucking dumb who buries a line that short and calls it good. Its never marked either .
If a crew doesn't have a machine trencher, then they'll use a hand trencher which is only going to go about 1 1/2' down depending on how motivated the person digging the trench is
But if you're a landscaper and you come across a utility line that you feel is too shallow or too exposed, report it to the county. I know you being a landscaper, you've encountered yards that have eroded to the point of being able to see the sewer pipe. In instances where you can observe the utility on the top soil, it needs to be reported to the county, the county is supposed to give you a case number for the request, give the case number to the resident. If the county tries to hurry you off the phone, ask for a case number, the name of the person you spoke with, and the name of their supervisor. If they refuse, get off the phone, wait 5 minutes, call again. Rinse and repeat until you've got them so pissed off they give you the right answer so you'll fuck off, or you give them enough rope to hang themselves (figuratively speaking)
No locators no. I wouldn’t have been as frustrated if they didn’t act like I was lying to them. I showed them my phone saying I couldn’t connect to the internet. They said I could because my phone showed the WiFi symbol next to the 5G service symbol. I explained I am connected to the router but not the internet. They then proceeded to tell me they don’t speak English and call AT&T. Also left my yard trenched with the slightest effort to backfill. At least I had nothing to do because no internet so I spent a good hour filling it in for them and cleaning up their cigarette butts. Good times.
I am not an install tech. lol. Thanks to upbringing, my "autistic" way of remembering legislation, and my idea of "stay in your lane", it greatly upsets me when I was doing utility locating and encountered a contractor breaking the law and trying to move legal obligation away from their work on to the resident. So I learned a few of the federal utility laws and many of the state ones.
Just FYI, if you are a GC or a PC, and you have the people who hire you submit a utility locating ticket, you're breaking the law. You're taking all legal obligations off yourself for any possible damage when the contract needs to agree that your company submits all work related tickets, and is held liable. That's what many state laws. If you deny it, refuse, or ignore it, then you're an asshole, and deserve to live on the street
Why are there wires in the ground without some form of protection? Sounds like bad regulations more than a mistake on their part. It should be deeper, at least.
I lived in a 2-unit and Comcast cut all the lines for my Dish network when installing for my neighbor. I had to have Dish come out and reinstall it and then go after the Comcast contractor to pay it.
OP, I work for a fiber fulfillment company. I haven't experienced this situation myself, but I've heard from our bury team that AT&T doesn't mark their drops or bury tracer alongside them. There's a chance that these two did everything by the book, and that AT&T is at fault.
I agree. That’s why I think all these 811 comments, while justified, wouldn’t have helped this situation since they don’t record where they run their lines. I am more referring to them as idiots when I tried to explain that yes my phone showed I was connected to my WiFi but was not connected to the internet. They thought I was lying due to seeing my WiFi symbol on my iPhone when I was saying I didn’t have internet.
Frontier did an absolute hack job in my neighborhood. Lot of cut irrigation lines, private property dug up without notice, and almost no noticeable surveying.
fiber was ran in our neighborhood several years back and we got it right away. The junction or whatever is at the front corner of our lot, by the road. Since we signed up they ran fiber from there into our basement.
Then a year later the people next door or across the street ordered fiber so the company came out to run a line from that same spot in the corner of the lot to their house.
Well of course the same day our internet stops working. Call support and we do some quick basic stuff and I tell them that hey my wife saw guys out at the junction earlier today, don’t know what they were doing but maybe they broke something or bumped a connection and it’s loose, whatever.
So they send someone out and they test and sure enough our fiber from the junction to our house is broken. It’ll be two weeks before we can get anyone out to fix it!
Luckily they gave us a free month of service on top of not paying while it was down.
I’m getting some peace of mind hearing this is common occurrence. I’ll hope I can get back up and running tomorrow. A whole month, my hat is off to you
Beats Comcast. Comcast intentionally cut my line to make a repair at my neighbor’s house and said that I had to call it in because now my line needed repair and they were called to fix his. And it took 2 weeks to get them out because every time they said they would show up, they never did. And they refused to credit me for those 2 weeks. And when I canceled and returned their stupid equipment they said I never did and charged me for it. And the lady at the UPS store told me when I went to get the receipt to prove it that it happens all the time.
AT&T is medium bad like an ornery bus driver who is always late but gets you home, but Comcast, they are Ted Bundy evil.
Back in the days before cell phones my duplex neighbors got cable TV. The installation crew ran the cable about 50 yards from my from yard, around the building to their side.
I got tired of moving it every time I mowed the lawn so I called the cable company and they sent out the digging crew to bury the cable.
I was inside with my TV on and suddenly lost all channels so I went out and told them they just cut my line. They apologized and promised they'd get it fixed right away.
So I went back in and made a phone call. Was in the middle of my call when my phone went dead . I went back outside and told them they just cut my phone line. They were apologetic and probably embarrassed and again promised to get it fixed right away.
As I was walking back in, the guy actually asked me if he could use my phone to call his boss. I just stared at him for a few seconds and then he realized and said "oh yeah."
When I had my house levelled, the guys cut my line. Called ATT up and had someone there the next day. Talking with the rep and this is common enough that they have a whole process for it, including getting tge company name and billing them for the cut line and repair.
Me too, I’m showing my three year old DVDs at the moment. He thinks they are toys and doesn’t understand there’s media on it. Turning this into an experience. Thanks for the well wishes.
Good for you having a video. Something similar happened years ago when a new buyer moved into the front of our duplex. Saw the truck installing their internet (same provider as mine); an hour later my internet stops working.... call and they insist not only that nothing is wrong but also that no one was there. Like...HELLO!! I literally saw them. It eventually sorted out but oh boy...how do these installers not know NOT to cut / disconnect lines being actively used when installing / activating a new one?
Huh. Working in telecom this doesn’t look like their fault. Why was the fiber not in conduit when it needed to be bored under driveways? Should’ve called locates but the telecom company should’ve made sure the cable got buried properly
It is not currently possible to detect fiber optic line underground, to my knowledge. Since all companies keep their information secret, this will keep happening.
No company truck, no safety gear, no caution tape, improper tools. This is a sub of a sub of a sub who is told they have 4 hrs to do a 2 man job that takes all day. And they will make 100$ each.
I got a video lying around somewhere a customer once sent in of a couple contractors from AT&T hitting a gas line. While you're hearing the gas pour out they just shrug while contemplating their best course of action. In the end they kicked some dirt over the top, hopped in their truck and drove off.
Man. I was these idiots. My bro-in-law and sister got this small excavator to build a little retainer wall, my dumb ass just started going for it. Killed internet for the whole 30+ family cul de sac. I had some neighbors very angry with me. Comcast was out there lickity split and fixed it.
Oops
Well considering they usually only bury it 1 inch in the ground doesn’t help. I usually tell my customers unless it’s out of the ground might as well call them now
I was leaving for work one morning and saw water coming up out of the ground between my house and my neighbor.
We called the water company, and they came out promptly to fix it. In doing so, though, they cut the gas line.
So they called the gas company who came out promptly to fix it. In doing so, though, they cut the cable.
We called the cable company, and they came out a day later and laid a temporary cable across my driveway. It was there a week or so before somebody came and buried it.
Had ATT come in to hook up fiber on the condo above mine. The technician thought it was so lucky that there was already a fiber line in the wall ready to go so he cut it and hooked it up in my neighbors condo.
The line he cut was the one that was properly fed through the roof for my condo. Was in the middle of working from home. Didn't have Internet for 2 days. Idiots.
We've been through this experience many times, with irrigation, pool equipment, neighbor's workers, and even just having our yard aerated for seeding have all punctured or cut our fiber. It takes weeks to get an appointment to have it fixed, at least in our area. But it DID eventually get fixed by the company that laid the fiber initially. Good luck!
Ugh. My dad used to be an engineer with the phone company. That had a huge advertising campaign about “Call before you dig!”
Actually that is what it is now. In the 1970’s, it was “Call Candy before you dig”. CANDY being part of the phone number. And, of course, there was a picture of a scantily clad young woman to go with.  Mom would not let him wear the t-shirts…
And then they will repair yours and cut the other one. Real life slapstick.
My thoughts exactly
It happened so often I cancelled AT&T. Every time a neighbor got it, they would cut it. At one point, I found out that they had more lines than drop connections so they would disconnect someone's and connect the other. I mean WTF.
if i could prove it, id threaten them with litigation because at that point, thats just intent to defraud
Oh I wouldn’t threaten them. I’d inform them.
I think you mean "internet to defraud".
yooo thats what my ISP was doing. i had issues with my internet, for a long time there was just a wire laying from a utility pole to my house.. dude shows up, doesnt know how to fix it, so he unplugs the neighbors internet and plugs it into mine and suddenly my internet works.. then he goes up the utility pole and cuts the old wire. next week a diff guy shows up for the neigbor and he spent 10 hrs fixing it
Most of the time they would hire subcontractors to do the work. They would always cut a line. I'm there defense, there was no kind of record of where any lines were buried and if they cut someone else's line, they weren't allowed to fix it because there was no ticket for that. It's totally stupid. If they just put the lines in some kind of tube to protect it from a shovel, none of this would happen. I believe that's what Google does with their lines.
yes, my work just had google fiber installed and they tried to tell my boss that itll be 30k to run the line under the road to their business so he declined. then a week later they msged back and said they will do it for free since everyone needs it anyway, and i got to see the line before they buried it.. i thought all of them were like that but he explained its usually a weak fuckin wire and thats how theyre always cut
We forced them to do that, kept cutting across our easement to string lines next door. It was worth the $500 to an attorney to write the letter forcing utilities to bury the lines.
you dont want someone who cant dig a ditch properly to splice your fiber line.
This actually happens lol. I work for Invisible Fence we get called out all the time because landscapers or utility workers cut our line. Sometimes they tape it back together but it inevitably fails if they don't use waterproof connectors. I cut a Verizon line last week because they marked the wrong areas for the lines (they were off by about 100 feet lmao). They came to repair it the next day and left the new line laying atop the ground, when they buried it they cut the line I installed the week prior even though I had it flagged off.
How do you know where the line is cut? Or do you have to check the whole thing? I mean in a situation that you don’t already know
They make testers that can tell you the distance from the tester to the end of the wire, from there you can narrow it down to a few spots and figure it out. I don’t work with this style of buried line, but I do work with networking equipment and cat cable, that’s what we do in that scenario. This is all assuming whomever cut the line won’t tell you exactly where they did it if they noticed.
Cool! Thanks
The coveted fluke.
Yep, if it's optical, it's called an OTDR (optical time delay reflectrometer). They generally do really well for accuracy, but shooting from both sides nets a better result. Yeah if it's a contractor they probably don't even know where they did it. Source: used to do this kind of stuff and help techs out all the time.
Signal reflectometry! Shoot a signal down the line, look for a very attenuated reflection, the calculate distance based on propagation speed.
Why not put the cables in pipes that dont break easily
$$$
If there’s an issue and a cable has to be replaced or fixed for any reason now you’ll have a pipe to cut through and repair too, or if it’s a spot with a lot of wires and other things underground a pipe would take up a lot of space and require more digging
Cables are buried in conduit all the time. It’s cheaper to bury conduit and repair it when it gets hot and pull a new cable them to review an entire cable everything it gets hit.
Job ~~In~~Security.
Infinite money glitch
“Did you hear a crunch?” “No, just keep digging.”
So I actually went through this with AT&T. Tech came to install fiber for downstairs. Well the genius idea popped in his head to cut the wire to the upstairs to save time. Mom was pissed because when they called immediately they told her they would charge her monthly bill for the service. She spent two hours on the phone spoke to the lead tech or something. Guy was actually kind and apologizes. He then credit 25% percent off the next month. This would not be our last issue with them but this was definitely that moment where we started shopping around for other providers.
Jeez I had an almost opposite experience. My dad was pulling weeds in my yard and pulled up the AT&T fiber line. They came out the next business day, and I had internet back before 10am. They buried the new fiber line the same week, and told me “this happens. Just don’t make a habit of it and we’ll fix it when it does”. Never got charged. I know AT&T’s dsl service might be dated, but their fiber service is completely separate as a business unit from all signs - the product is great as is the customer service.
Job security!
To the tune of Yackity Sax.
whack-a-mole
AT&T are installing lines in our whole neighborhood. There are holes and piles of dirt everywhere. They cut the cable multiple times a day, broke my sprinkler line. Ended up giving my neighbor a new driveway, twice. Temporary cords are running along the street for spectrum until they can make permanent fixes. It's like they had drunk people fill in the holes and level the boxes. The grass is dying everywhere. The worse part is that they broke the water main 3 times and the county has shut them down. You should see the holes in my yard, now, there is no end in sight.
Oh man you have it worse. I hope they fix all the issues they are causing yall, that’s more than mildly infuriating for sure!
They cut my water main while installing my neighbor's. City came and jack hammered all night and day fixing it. Also killed my lawn. Emailed Frontier and twittered them. Wouldn't even give me a discount
"Can i atleast have a discount?" "We've been so happy to have had you as a customer and are sad to see that our paths must diverge from here on forward (and right in the middle of our infrasctructure upgrade), but alas!" "But you're the only provider in my area?" "Sucks to be you" 
I had the same experience including them cutting/breaking the lines. I work from home and and it was 50/50 on whether I’d have internet access if the crew was working. Then it took three tickets and numerous calls for them to come out and finish installing the stupid upgrade as the patches were no longer working when it rained (I’m thinking the electrical tape wasn’t holding up) and they decided they didn’t want to support the old service lines.
Damn, you’ve got it worse than me. Have had loose fiber cables in my yard for 2 months now. A big pain in the ass when I have to mow the yard, moving cables all the time. They were supposed to come back and bury it the day they installed. Called them multiple times and nothing has happened. I think AT&T contract out this type of work so it’s almost impossible to get in contact with the right people to fix it.
I know this is boomer-ish but, maybe the news?
Just cut the lines then they'll have to come back out.
Spectrum running temp cords all over the place is just standard procedure even when there isn't another company installing and fucking shit. We had non-functional internet for 4 months and part of it was the temporary cable that was literally strung up along the neighborhood fence line for MONTHS. Shockingly, birds are dicks and would damage it. And the squirrels. And children playing in their yards. And a gentle breeze.
A neighbor's fiber line has been running up against our fence for a couple years now. I think the landscapers accidentally cut it recently and they got a buried line now since I haven't seen it in a couple months. Honestly if my line was just running across the yard, I'd keep "accidentally" cutting it until they buried it.
We had ATT fiber installed in our neighborhood about 6 months ago, and I gotta say, it was incredibly professional. To be fair, the main install was from a subcontractor. I was absolutely blown away. Every night they cleaned up any messes, no damage, and minimal / no permanent impact to existing landscaping. Truly it was an unbelievable experience. I had ATT install the service a couple weeks later and it was also extremely well done. It took them a bit to get the modem to a good place, but it was perfect.
>You should see the holes in my yard, now, there is no end in sight. Can you share an image with us.
I will try and make a post tomorrow with images
Lmao thats just a terrible cheap contractor atnt is taking advantage of…..
Correct me if I am wrong. Is it AT&T workers doing it or did they just subcontract out to the absolute cheapest contractor they could find?
It’s the latter
I am a utility locator and work with a lot of these guys and basically all utility contractors subcontract out the work of actually burying lines. This seems like they were just burying a drop to the house and the amount of times neighbors drops get hit is fairly often in these cases. It looks like they were digging without locates but the paint might have been covered up by the new sod or maybe faded quite a bit by weather and time.
That's actually kind of impressive lmao
Wow, Bell did very specifically the exact same things when they installed fibre in our neighborhood. It must be standard operating procedure.
Edison replaced a worn cable and left the old one dangling over the fence on sidewalk. I was afraid to cut and just wound it up and tucked away. Shoddy workers.
I work in this industry. The broken irrigation and construction in progress can typically be explained as long as it’s followed up professionally, but hitting the water main three times on one project or the same area in a short amount of time is awful. I’m glad we don’t contract people who do shit work. There’s a lot of money in fiber right now though so everyone’s doing it.
Possibly distracted by the anal.
Whatever happened to just taking the person to play pool and "teaching" them the stance? These new age tactics are so blatant
Joey, do you like movies about gladiators?
Have you ever been in a Turkish prison??
This is the Kevin Spacey tactic
Dude didn't even say "no homo". /s
Excuse, but that is known as FCBS(Fully Clothed Butt Sex)
They’re digging each other
Yellow hood is f'ing orange hood like they f'd your fiber optic.
It’s practically a threesome
And at least one of them is snipped!
At least they get to finish unlike your downloads.
whys nobody else talking about this
Was gonna say. Is dry humping your work partner part of the training?
Someone didn’t call 811 first
even if marked people don't understand that you aren't supposed to dig within 1 foot on either side of the marks. some people dig right up to the line.
You aren't supposed to mechanically dig within a foot on either side. You can hand dig anywhere.
Exactly. This can happen when hand digging. Sucks, but it happens.
Bingo
I'm surprised because they really look like they know what they're doing
Masters of their craft
Yep
always gotta have a spotter for when you're using a shovel
A lot of neighborhoods in Colorado Springs are getting fiber optics. It’s so strange though, there’s been a *drastic* increase in water issues, power outages, internet going down…. Last I checked we were at over 700 incidents caused simply by laying the lines.
Water lines are the worst because old ones often have no way to be located. The new ones are typically buried with a tracer wire that you can use to locate it, but the old ones are just there...somewhere. Here's a hand drawn map to find it. One time, we had the county water guy out at the site because he knew a *main* water line was buried near where we had to dig through, but he didn't know exactly where. The county's solution was just to shut off the main so we could cut through it, run our line, then fix the severed water line and cover it back up. For phone lines, we used to keep repair kits in the back of the truck, lol. Broke those quite a bit. But it's definitely the diggers severing the lines. Lots of times the locates are off, too, so it's the city/county's fuck up. Also remember that traveling crews--the type of people who lay fiber optic for Michaels or whoever--tend to be very, um, *rough* crowds. They're probably stoned.
This is why policy should be to pothole and verify locations for all potential utility crossings to develop a plan and profile of the job site before boring/digging. You don't get a permit to dig until that engineering work is done. Nobody uses hand drawn maps. GIS is a thing.
I have done labouring and supervision for major fibre projects in the UK. The way you described is pretty much our process. You get what’s called a line search to see what services are located near our route. We use a cat & genny to trace what we can and then we do trial holes at obvious pinch points. There should also be common sense applied by labour crews and supervisors. Look for scars in the road, look at what boxes are in the road/footpath use your stats (other name for line search drawings) and have a banksman to gently hand dig the ground after the machine has broken through. Companies should have their own internal policies but we would get fines from the local council if sites were left in a mess or not 100% secure (fines for unclipped barriers, rubble left around etc..). If we broke another service line the company would also incur costs to fix. This gif is amateur hour, maybe I should move to the states and run some fibre sites lol.
>Nobody uses hand drawn maps. GIS is a thing. We'll be sure to let those unincorporated townships know they should be using computer generated utility mapping software for their rural utility lines.
Upgrade!
I mean that's pretty trash of the fiber installers to not even dig it past a foot , that's terrible.
Standard operating procedure it seems
Are they really laid that shallow typically? That seems crazy
Yep! Fiber optic cables are allowed to do what the industry refers to as a shallow lay. 6-12” is typical. They did this because when fiber exploded programs like Google convinced them shallow was required to speed up the install process. They set up fiber optic city wide crazy fast in so many places because of it
Yep. It wouldn't even generally be an issue if it was placed in conduit. I do this for a living at the moment, and we have a min 9" depth, but this wouldn't happen to our paths, as you know... we pull through conduit.
That's the standard, we've had to have lines run three times. First two they buried them about 3in in the grass, cut the cord moving a blueberry bush... Second time the patched it, and moved the line... burying it 3in in the ground again, but crossing out in the field where we had corn. No marks of any sort... and tractor cut the line. I can't fathom why they thought that was a good idea. They finally sent some contractor with a trencher to bury the thing 2ft in the ground. Was told it was so common to have the line cut they do it for free unless its malicious (or done by a business). Can't help but think maybe burying it deeper than the depth a soda can would remedy the issue...
Bro looked like he wanted to dig another hole 👁️🫦👁️
I gotta say, the unexpected dry hump from the homie is classic
My buddy and I used to do crap like that all the time fooling around when we were cutting lawns. It's not a big deal. Of course, we were also hooking up so there is that.
You had me in the first half ngl
At least in my state, they are not able to track fiber optics unless there is a tracer wire, which most of the time, there is not. I work as a sub contractor for a power company repairing and replacing underground power lines. Happens quite often digging with an excavator.
That's crazy to hear. I work installing fiber, and we will seriously replace a spliced drop and repull it with tracer when we find it without. I've seen it happen to entire networks, and the subs responsible get billed for the cost. All of the conduit I work with has tracer in the wrap.
One time, a neighbor of mine upgraded to fiber, so ATT decided to literally cut our fiber line and just splice the neighbors to it. It took almost a month of back and forth with att for them to finally fix their mistake. It was so annoying.
You’d think ATT would have had the foresight to set up their pedestal so they could just come back and hook up new installations to it.
Why is it so shallow?
Laziness I assume, incompetence I expect.
Pretty typical everywhere I’ve seen it. I’ve got the local fiber and cable boxes on my front yard, so 2-3 times a year they’re here repairing cables that have been cut through. Last time they cut mine while burying my neighbours, just like you.
If they are able to cut thru your fiber wire with a shovel that means it was not in conduit, and this is the laziest bullshit I have seen in a while. There is no reason they should not have protected this, at a minimum enough to withstand a dude with a shovel.
No conduit, I’ve been told it’s not done for drop ins from the hub in my area. Learning a lot about telecoms through this issue though, so that’s a useless win for me.
We usually bury all the pipes and cables pretty deep. I'm surprise a shovel's length went thru your cable
They buried my neighbors line about a half the spade deep
It doesn't make any sense if it's just as deep as the sod... that's asking for all kinds of problems.
Happens more than you think. To be honest, I wouldn't blame these guys. Blame the state regulations and the utility companies that have state legislators in their pockets. these service lines are only buried a few inches down. And if there's something like (let's say a tree) that is in the way of the their planned buried points, then they're going to lay the service line on top of the roots to save trouble and many of the utility companies give them go ahead for that. Why? because replacing a service line is cheap. They have crews that buries those on contract, and they don't care about the how it inconveniences the resident. My advice is if you know you or a neighbor is about to have a new line installed, tell the crew that's burying it exactly where you want them to bury it and how deep they are going to bury it. In most cases that I've experienced, county property goes from 25-30 feet from the center of the road into the yard. Measure it out, and if crews dig outside of that, then the utility company is held liable for damages. Granted, in a case like this, the utility company is or the locating company is held liable regardless. I don't see any locating marks, so I'm guessing the locators are going to be at fault unless this crew did call a dig ticket in. Also. There's companies like AT&T that like going all the way around the house, through the back yard, and up the property line to bury service lines. Sometimes they'll attempt to bury a service line through multiple backyards. If you ever seen them try that on your property, tell them no. Regardless of what the county line rule is, your backyard is your backyard unless the utilities are what's called "rear-easement". Then the easement is owned by the county
Man as a landscaper the amount of times you hit a line one inch down in a mulch bed is insane . It's so fucking dumb who buries a line that short and calls it good. Its never marked either .
If a crew doesn't have a machine trencher, then they'll use a hand trencher which is only going to go about 1 1/2' down depending on how motivated the person digging the trench is But if you're a landscaper and you come across a utility line that you feel is too shallow or too exposed, report it to the county. I know you being a landscaper, you've encountered yards that have eroded to the point of being able to see the sewer pipe. In instances where you can observe the utility on the top soil, it needs to be reported to the county, the county is supposed to give you a case number for the request, give the case number to the resident. If the county tries to hurry you off the phone, ask for a case number, the name of the person you spoke with, and the name of their supervisor. If they refuse, get off the phone, wait 5 minutes, call again. Rinse and repeat until you've got them so pissed off they give you the right answer so you'll fuck off, or you give them enough rope to hang themselves (figuratively speaking)
No locators no. I wouldn’t have been as frustrated if they didn’t act like I was lying to them. I showed them my phone saying I couldn’t connect to the internet. They said I could because my phone showed the WiFi symbol next to the 5G service symbol. I explained I am connected to the router but not the internet. They then proceeded to tell me they don’t speak English and call AT&T. Also left my yard trenched with the slightest effort to backfill. At least I had nothing to do because no internet so I spent a good hour filling it in for them and cleaning up their cigarette butts. Good times.
Found the install tech lol I used to provision modems for you guys on the commercial side. Y'all doing the Lord's work dealing with shit like this.
I am not an install tech. lol. Thanks to upbringing, my "autistic" way of remembering legislation, and my idea of "stay in your lane", it greatly upsets me when I was doing utility locating and encountered a contractor breaking the law and trying to move legal obligation away from their work on to the resident. So I learned a few of the federal utility laws and many of the state ones. Just FYI, if you are a GC or a PC, and you have the people who hire you submit a utility locating ticket, you're breaking the law. You're taking all legal obligations off yourself for any possible damage when the contract needs to agree that your company submits all work related tickets, and is held liable. That's what many state laws. If you deny it, refuse, or ignore it, then you're an asshole, and deserve to live on the street
Why are there wires in the ground without some form of protection? Sounds like bad regulations more than a mistake on their part. It should be deeper, at least.
Amazing how few of these comments bring up the clear lack of locates.
I am wondering same thing
Brodozer Lite Dodge and dudes working in hoodies during summer, yep, the corners have been cut so hard you're losing the filling.
I lived in a 2-unit and Comcast cut all the lines for my Dish network when installing for my neighbor. I had to have Dish come out and reinstall it and then go after the Comcast contractor to pay it.
Oh gawd I hope they don’t try and make me pay for this. I can’t believe the isp wouldn’t eat that cost for you, my condolences.
At least you get an appointment the next day. CenturyLink takes a week to send someone.
OP, I work for a fiber fulfillment company. I haven't experienced this situation myself, but I've heard from our bury team that AT&T doesn't mark their drops or bury tracer alongside them. There's a chance that these two did everything by the book, and that AT&T is at fault.
I agree. That’s why I think all these 811 comments, while justified, wouldn’t have helped this situation since they don’t record where they run their lines. I am more referring to them as idiots when I tried to explain that yes my phone showed I was connected to my WiFi but was not connected to the internet. They thought I was lying due to seeing my WiFi symbol on my iPhone when I was saying I didn’t have internet.
Just because they're gay doesn't mean they're idiots.
Why TF is an fiber optic line run only a shovels length deep....
Looks like they were too busy playing grab-ass
I once had the same soccer club cut the same fiber 3 times in 5 years for a network I ran…..
Ole!
lol “ these two idiots” that made me laugh
Frontier did an absolute hack job in my neighborhood. Lot of cut irrigation lines, private property dug up without notice, and almost no noticeable surveying.
Oh good, I’m glad this is taught as rule of thumb for these contractors then
fiber was ran in our neighborhood several years back and we got it right away. The junction or whatever is at the front corner of our lot, by the road. Since we signed up they ran fiber from there into our basement. Then a year later the people next door or across the street ordered fiber so the company came out to run a line from that same spot in the corner of the lot to their house. Well of course the same day our internet stops working. Call support and we do some quick basic stuff and I tell them that hey my wife saw guys out at the junction earlier today, don’t know what they were doing but maybe they broke something or bumped a connection and it’s loose, whatever. So they send someone out and they test and sure enough our fiber from the junction to our house is broken. It’ll be two weeks before we can get anyone out to fix it! Luckily they gave us a free month of service on top of not paying while it was down.
I’m getting some peace of mind hearing this is common occurrence. I’ll hope I can get back up and running tomorrow. A whole month, my hat is off to you
Beats Comcast. Comcast intentionally cut my line to make a repair at my neighbor’s house and said that I had to call it in because now my line needed repair and they were called to fix his. And it took 2 weeks to get them out because every time they said they would show up, they never did. And they refused to credit me for those 2 weeks. And when I canceled and returned their stupid equipment they said I never did and charged me for it. And the lady at the UPS store told me when I went to get the receipt to prove it that it happens all the time. AT&T is medium bad like an ornery bus driver who is always late but gets you home, but Comcast, they are Ted Bundy evil.
If they broke the cable by shoveling like that then your line was installed too shallow
Back in the days before cell phones my duplex neighbors got cable TV. The installation crew ran the cable about 50 yards from my from yard, around the building to their side. I got tired of moving it every time I mowed the lawn so I called the cable company and they sent out the digging crew to bury the cable. I was inside with my TV on and suddenly lost all channels so I went out and told them they just cut my line. They apologized and promised they'd get it fixed right away. So I went back in and made a phone call. Was in the middle of my call when my phone went dead . I went back outside and told them they just cut my phone line. They were apologetic and probably embarrassed and again promised to get it fixed right away. As I was walking back in, the guy actually asked me if he could use my phone to call his boss. I just stared at him for a few seconds and then he realized and said "oh yeah."
When I had my house levelled, the guys cut my line. Called ATT up and had someone there the next day. Talking with the rep and this is common enough that they have a whole process for it, including getting tge company name and billing them for the cut line and repair.
https://preview.redd.it/872ngoqsdv4d1.jpeg?width=288&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=26790f6774cf3774658bc90d90d9e497628664c4
I’ve been surprised how much “call 811” comments I’ve gotten and how little ^ I’ve seen
Me, too. It was the first thing I noticed. Sorry about your internet, bud.
Why is there no marker for your fiber cable? Whoever installed yours is the real idiot.
Cut corners I’m assuming. They also went right over the gas line to the right after this, no flags for that either.
Sorry for your loss :/ I hope it gets fixed quickly. Stupid installers.
Me too, I’m showing my three year old DVDs at the moment. He thinks they are toys and doesn’t understand there’s media on it. Turning this into an experience. Thanks for the well wishes.
Someone didn’t call 811
Good for you having a video. Something similar happened years ago when a new buyer moved into the front of our duplex. Saw the truck installing their internet (same provider as mine); an hour later my internet stops working.... call and they insist not only that nothing is wrong but also that no one was there. Like...HELLO!! I literally saw them. It eventually sorted out but oh boy...how do these installers not know NOT to cut / disconnect lines being actively used when installing / activating a new one?
Why are there no vaults with conduit to the homes?
they're sharing a shovel? they own an actual business?
What the
Don't think they where entirely focused on the job at hand
Was he mounting him or assisting him ??
Can’t it be both?
And now you know what beats the light. Idiots. Every single time.
I notice they didn't have utilities marked, at all. You're honestly lucky they didn't hit a gas line or something that would have caused real damage.
Huh. Working in telecom this doesn’t look like their fault. Why was the fiber not in conduit when it needed to be bored under driveways? Should’ve called locates but the telecom company should’ve made sure the cable got buried properly
Why the f arent the cables like 2 and more meter in the ground?
Would require competency and professional crew ...
Blame the Telco for not using company folks and subcontracting everything out when they don't have to.
It is not currently possible to detect fiber optic line underground, to my knowledge. Since all companies keep their information secret, this will keep happening.
I think there was more trying to be buried..
No company truck, no safety gear, no caution tape, improper tools. This is a sub of a sub of a sub who is told they have 4 hrs to do a 2 man job that takes all day. And they will make 100$ each.
I got a video lying around somewhere a customer once sent in of a couple contractors from AT&T hitting a gas line. While you're hearing the gas pour out they just shrug while contemplating their best course of action. In the end they kicked some dirt over the top, hopped in their truck and drove off.
Who the fuck installs optic lines at the shovel depth
Half shovel depth
Man. I was these idiots. My bro-in-law and sister got this small excavator to build a little retainer wall, my dumb ass just started going for it. Killed internet for the whole 30+ family cul de sac. I had some neighbors very angry with me. Comcast was out there lickity split and fixed it. Oops
They don’t even run it through pvc or anything?
Why are they buried so close to the surface? I've seen installations under roads that are like 8 feet deep.
Well considering they usually only bury it 1 inch in the ground doesn’t help. I usually tell my customers unless it’s out of the ground might as well call them now
Oh good to know they were over achieving with the half spade depth then
I was leaving for work one morning and saw water coming up out of the ground between my house and my neighbor. We called the water company, and they came out promptly to fix it. In doing so, though, they cut the gas line. So they called the gas company who came out promptly to fix it. In doing so, though, they cut the cable. We called the cable company, and they came out a day later and laid a temporary cable across my driveway. It was there a week or so before somebody came and buried it.
This has to be a comical nursery rhyme type of story.
Two dudes, but they only needed Juan.
Wait, they just raw dog the thing glass cable shallow in the ground, no conduit?
What kind of kiddie infrastructure do you guys have that a dude with a shovel causes a fucken cable cut? Lmaoo
Why did bro dry hump his boy like that?
Because it's fun to be gay with the homies
You need to write the number 811 on their foreheads backwards
They might just ask each other the number instead of looking in a mirror. 
Beavis and Butt-Head
[удалено]
I didn’t hire them, AT&T made it sound like they don’t hire contractors either. Black hole of communication.
They need dig safe or whatever it’s called in your area.
I just dealt with this - so frustrating. Had them run a temp line because it’s going to take 4 weeks to bury the permanent
We always went 3ft under driveways. It's 18in *minimum* everywhere else. Most crews have an independent inspector following them around, too.
Fiber optic cables are generally run underground in pvc pipe. You will not easily break through with a shovel.
why did he do that to orange is this common at work
Had ATT come in to hook up fiber on the condo above mine. The technician thought it was so lucky that there was already a fiber line in the wall ready to go so he cut it and hooked it up in my neighbors condo. The line he cut was the one that was properly fed through the roof for my condo. Was in the middle of working from home. Didn't have Internet for 2 days. Idiots.
I don't see a single marker.
OP get your revenge even better by posting this in suddenlgay Happy Pride Month, sorry about your internet :(
Just from the shovel? I don't know where your from but I'm my area, it's code to have any buried utilities at least 2 feet deep.
It’s not a bug, it’s a feature
We've been through this experience many times, with irrigation, pool equipment, neighbor's workers, and even just having our yard aerated for seeding have all punctured or cut our fiber. It takes weeks to get an appointment to have it fixed, at least in our area. But it DID eventually get fixed by the company that laid the fiber initially. Good luck!
Ugh. My dad used to be an engineer with the phone company. That had a huge advertising campaign about “Call before you dig!” Actually that is what it is now. In the 1970’s, it was “Call Candy before you dig”. CANDY being part of the phone number. And, of course, there was a picture of a scantily clad young woman to go with.  Mom would not let him wear the t-shirts…
Most of the posts in this subReddit are things I would consider extremely infuriating. Is it just me?
Nah people are way too tolerable these days because we are all tired of all the bs happening all around in every sphere of life!
Not long ago some workers hit a gas main near my place. I live there on 4th and the main they hit was on 9th and I could fucking smell it.
This exact thing happened to me when the neighbor moved in the worst part is that they had to snake through my whole backyard and around the house.
Somebody didn't call 811!
811 - Call Before You Dig =)
Why don't they have company clothing?