[AT] OFF Topic: 4 month Verizon WAR

[charlie hill]

Spencer,  I have to reply to that with my own cable access story.
Where I live used to be at the end of a half mile long private dirt road
and was that way when I moved here.  A few years later the owner
of the woods and the road turned it all into a subdivision with the state
maintenance ending about 30 feet or so from my driveway.  Jump forward
a few years, the road had been paved to the end of the state maintenance
and a few houses had been built along the road and the guy who managed
our cable company bought one of them.  He immediately ran the cable
to the first vacant lot past his house and stopped it.  He refused to run it
to the end of the road leaving half a dozen houses on the road with no 
access
and about a dozen of us on another private dirt lane that crossed the end of 
the
road with no access.

No one could get him to run it any further.  One of my neighbors is a 
contractor
and offered to run the cable himself and pay for it.  In fact he had offered 
to do that
before the cable guy moved to the road.  He would have run it all the way 
from the
highway before the road was paved and made public but the cable company 
wouldn't allow
it even though it would have cost them nothing.  The guy was just a jerk.

Well jump forward another couple of years.  The guy at the very end of the 
road
and just across from our place is an architect.  He was at a Christmas party 
and
the cable guy was there.  The cable guy had a few drinks and was hitting on 
my
architect neighbor to do some FREE design work for an addition to his house.
My neighbor has a pretty quick mind and said, OK, I'll do it if you run 
cable to my house.
They struck a deal but the guy refused to go any further and even instructed 
the
cable contractor to stop the cable before the end of the state maintenance 
and run the cable
under the road to my neighbors house so he wouldn't have to provide service 
to any of the rest
of us.   A few months past and they got around to plowing the cable to hook 
my neighbor
up. I went home one day at lunch and there in the corner of my yard, on the 
property line
with another neighbor was a cable TV box.   It seems the contractor used 
some common
sense and plowed the cable along the right of way, across the private lane 
and to a property
corner where there was a power pole even though the cable man didn't want it 
done that
way.

As soon as I saw the cable pedestal on my lot line I called the cable 
company.  They were
so nice and more than willing to hook me up until I told them my address. 
The tone changed
and the lady said "sir we don't have service at that location".  I said, 
"oh, ok well let me ask you
a question"  "what is a thing that sticks up out of the ground, is painted 
light green and has
CTV stamped into the housing?"   She said, that's a cable TV pedestal.  Then 
I said well
there is one in the corner of my yard and if you don't have service at my 
house then I guess
you won't mind if I take my tractor and pull it up and I hung up the phone.

Guess who had cable TV the next day?  Then since my address was on the 
private dirt lane
they were forced to run cable 1/4 mile in one direction and 3/4 mile in the 
other direction
along that private dirt lane because everyone else started raising H$%% with 
them.

Charlie

-----Original Message----- 
From: Spencer Yost
Sent: Sunday, August 30, 2015 8:20 PM
To: Antique tractor email discussion group
Subject: Re: [AT] OFF Topic: 4 month Verizon WAR

First, an obligatory tractor reference. I installed the cable using a 
subcontractor but did the final grading and planting behind them with an 
antique tractor.

Full story is, a neighbor and I installed the underground cable from the 
nearest access point down to our houses.  Because the cable company would 
pick up some more customers in addition to us, they gave us a break on our 
first years bills and took over ownership and maintenance.  That was 
substantial in the old days when commercial grade internet speeds were very 
expensive and maintenance was expensive(access boxes were upgraded three 
times in quick succession).

We bought left-over cable from a commercial installer and found a trenching 
company employee who was allowed to use his bosses equipment after hours. So 
he gave us a very, very good price on trenching the cable.

I did not come out ahead but I didn't lose any money on that deal and I got 
cable 10-20 years sooner.  Splitting it with a neighbor was key though.  The 
cable company was very receptive about expanding service and was very 
willing to work with us.

I am not sure how much sense that makes in today's world, but maybe that 
might work for some of you?   We only had to trench about 1/2 mile though. 
Some of you sound much farther than that.

This message traveled over that cable 20 years later....

Spencer


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