Is soldering and taping good enough for an outdoor phone line repair?

Or should I have the phone company come and do it according to their
standards?


The neighbor's contracter was working right at the property line and
cut my phone line. I found him with the 4 wires stripped from each
end, and he was wrapping the wires together, and going to use wire
nuts and electrical tape.

I stopped him and soldered the connections, used his wire nuts for
some reason, and then used stretch tape (I think it is called silicon
tape) which normally gives a much better seal, afaict. But I don't
really know how long the tape lasts. The splice is two inches above
the dirt, and would look better covered with dirt (which I guess they
didn't do, because I had complained that just wrapping the wires isn't
good enough for an underground connection.)

The neighbor himself suggested I call the phone company, and that he
would pay. The woman at the repair office won't tell me how much they
charge for this until the repairman comes out. The woman admitted a
lot of people don't call them, of course.

I don't want the neighbor to pay if my repair is good enough, but if I
don't get him to pay now, when it breaks later, the contractor will be
long gone, and maybe my neighbor too. And I'll have to pay.


(The contractors didn't cut a buried wire. They knew the wire was
there and one was holding it out of the way, while the other used a 4-
or 5-foot rod to jab at the cement left in the ground from a fence
post. He hit it several times before he cut the wire. ) They
should have used a rod that they held in place, and hit it with a
sledge or something, instead of moving the hole 5 foot pole, right?

(FWIW, they also didn't tell me they had cut my line, didn't apologize
when I found out, didn't tell me they were going to "fix" it or when,
and I was going to call the phone company when I went outside again to
do a temporary repair, and saw that they had started their repair. I
don't think they planned to tell me at all that they had cut it.)

Thanks.


Meirman
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