[Ma-linux] Verizon Payment Frustration

[Przemek Klosowski]

On 01/20/2012 04:25 PM, John SJ Anderson wrote:
> On Friday, January 20, 2012 at 15:56 , Janina Sajka wrote:
>> I think the problem there is that all the cable is buried. Has Verizon
>> taken on FIOS deployment where they need to dig? I'm unaware they have,
>> but it would be instructive to find out they have.
> Yep, they came through my neighborhood a few months back (like, late
> summer time frame) and put in cable. They didn't dig _trenches_ or
> anything, but they did make holes -- I assume there's some sort of
> existing right-of-way down there that they were just pulling cable through.

So the standard method for installing this is to dig manholes/pullboxes 
every two houses, and push an underground conduit between them. The 
manholes are in the 'right-of-way' easements between the houses, so they 
technically don't have to ask homeowners' permission after they get the 
municipality permits. Such easements are a long-standing law---Verizon 
didn't create them for FIOS, they just use them, just like any other 
utility company. They are supposed to notify owners and fix damage 
caused to the lawns, though.

  The 'push' machines are pretty singular---you must have seen them on 
the road; they look like a trailer with a not-quite-horizontal stack of 
tubes, and a mechanism to push the tubes underground, helped by pumped 
water (so there's a tanker truck nearby when they're working). They can 
push the tubes underground for about 50-100 yards. Hilarity ensues when 
they hit something else while pushing---there was a sad dugout in my 
neighbourhood where they hit  a junction box with hundreds of phone 
wires and had FIOS and landline people work on fixing it for several weeks.

They do dig a trench from the manhole to your house, when you order the 
service.