On Aug 10, 8:16*pm, aemeijers wrote:
SteveB wrote:
My excellent track hoe operator cut my phone cable. *He called a buddy who
works for the phone company, and he says the phone company charges $300 to
come fix it. *It is a copper shielded 4 line wire. *It has some goo on the
inside. *It is a buried line not in a conduit.

Does the price seem high? *I know I could splice the wires, but a ten foot
section was just destroyed, and I don't have any of that specialized wire.
And then there's the issue of weather and water.

What would you do?

Steve

Around these parts, if you haven't been a PITA with 'accidents' before,
they will generally give you a freebie on the first one, along with a
lecture about calling the locator service before you dig. If your buddy
with the backhoe also has a ditch witch, and can have a slit trench
waiting for them to replace the whole drop all the way from street
pedestal to demarc, that could help your case. Ma Bell prefers not to
have underground splices. (At least the older field techs say that.)

Failing that, I'd pay the $300, and call it a lesson for your equipment
operator. Maybe he'll split it with you.

--
aem sends...

Ready for an amusing story; re a major/important buried fibre optics
cable????
Not telephone service to a single dwelling.

BTW. If it was already fixed; why the dumb troll did he ask "What
would you do"?

Well here goes anyway.

A telephone utility company had a fibre cable between a major downtown
location and their major radio site on hill outside town. The telco
had constructed a road up to the radio site from the main highway but
various unofficial vehicles were using the road and the telco was
concerned about vandalism/damage/tampering at the radio site.

So they hired contractor to construct a gate that could be locked etc.
across the entrance from the highway.

First thing contractor did was to dig down and cut the fibre optic
cable; causing a major disruption of Long Distance service.

Oops! "Call before you dig".