[ale] OT: Re: BellSouth DSL setup

[James P. Kinney III]

When I was setting up a new server pile that was going to be fed by a
nwe T1 line, I took no chances that BS would bugger up something. I (and
my wife) dug the trench, laid in 1" electrical PVC and then pulled a 6
pair, armored, direct-burial rated phone line from the dmarc line to the
pole and left 25' of slack at the pole for BS to use to run up the pole
and connect in to the line system.

The BS tech cut off the line 5' up the pole and put a junction box in.
He claimed that since it was a direct burial line it couldn't be used on
the pole. I was _TRYING_ to get a solid line from the pole to the demarc
point using a very robust line.

On the inside at the demarc point, the install tech cut off the line
leaving no slack at all. In fact, he even creased the insulation making
the bend out of the conduit to take up any excess slack. Inside the
junction box, the wires are cut so short that they can't ever be removed
and replaced. The junction box was placed directly adjacent (i.e.
touching) the supply conduit.

A few weeks later, another tech was out working on a neighbors system
installing a new phone line. I had to explain using very small words
that the 6 pairs in that box went underground into MY place and he
couldn't use a pair for his new line.

That box now has a padlock on it and a note giving key access
instructions for BS.

The way things are going, without some sort of legislative protections,
BS is going to bugger up enough to be reduced to a wire-n-pole company.
Having seen their work in action lately, that really scares me.

On Fri, 2005-09-16 at 11:29 -0400, tfreeman at intel.digichem.net wrote:
> I've been down that road. It winds around, through hill and valley, never 
> gets anywhere and never gets back to where it started either.
> 
> Not in Atlanta, and it was years ago also. Time-Warner came out to put 
> cable to the house. Three weeks later, time to bury the cable, and they 
> cut the phone line. Bell South fixed the line within 6 hours or so with a 
> temporary line on the ground across the back yard. Couple of weeks later, 
> Bell South sent somebody out to bury their line (you see where this is 
> going), and cut the Time-Warner cable. Time-Warner came out within a day, 
> and laid another temp cable across the back yard. Couple weeks later, they 
> buried their cable and cut Bell South _again_. In all cases, all parties 
> exercised due caution, searching for, and marking, the location of buried 
> cables.
> 
> As to the exercise of getting Duke Power to fix a buried power line across 
> the back yard during a renovation effort... Took them four tries to do the 
> job.
> 
> On Fri, 16 Sep 2005, Geoffrey wrote:
> 
> > James Sumners wrote:
> > > I hate Bellsouth.
> > 
> > On that note...
> > 
> > They finally buried my mother-in-law's dsl cable yesterday.  Problem is, 
> > they cut her tv cable.  Her BELLSOUTH Entertainment digital tv cable.
> > 
> > Had them come back out and repair the tv cable.  Get this, not only did 
> > they cut her cable but her neighbor's comcast cable.
> > 
> > So when I told the Bellsouth guy that they needed to get that fixed as 
> > well, he said the neighbor would have to call comcast.
> > 
> > I told him Bellsouth cut it, they should be responsible for getting it 
> > repaired.
> > 
> > Then he tells me that he's with BellSouth entertainment and that he 
> > can't do anything about it, because it was BellSouth Communications who 
> > cut the cable and they are two different companies!  What a crock.
> > 
> > I told him that he would at least have to tell the neighbor that she 
> > would have to call comcast.
> > 
> > 
> 
-- 
James P. Kinney III          \Changing the mobile computing world/
CEO & Director of Engineering \          one Linux user         /
Local Net Solutions,LLC        \           at a time.          /
770-493-8244                    \.___________________________./
http://www.localnetsolutions.com

GPG ID: 829C6CA7 James P. Kinney III (M.S. Physics)
<jkinney at localnetsolutions.com>
Fingerprint = 3C9E 6366 54FC A3FE BA4D 0659 6190 ADC3 829C 6CA7
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