I will be very careful here. It will be way too easy to produce a post that belongs in The Pit.
Fios was laying infrastructure in our neighborhood yesterday and transected our comcast cable. Comcast said the earliest time that they could arrive was Friday afternoon, and that they someone would have to be there. Having to be there is incredibly inconvenient and in this case there is zero chance of it being anything but a broken cable, which does not require a visit inside.
Do I have any way to do any of the following:
Get ATT to provide us with a free 4G cards and service so we can hook up our computers to the internet in the interim.
Have ATT reimburse us for hiring someone to be at home, or
Have Comcast come out and fix the mistake without us being there.
I’m not sure this belongs in GQ, but I can’t see how you’re going to get them to give you 4G cards in time to be useful, so forget that one. You might get them to reimburse you, but it will take a long time for them to process the request. In the meantime, you should document any real costs you endure. If it doesn’t really cost you anything to stay home (e.g., because you have paid time off), they might claim there was no real cost to you.
Right. I knew all along this was a borderline post. However, I am hoping there is factual answer such as according to this regulation they have to do this.
Another salient and related question is who pays for the repair. I know I will not be charged, but the lack of concern on the part of Verizon suggests they pay little, if anything for the repair. What is the story on this? Comcast just fixes it and eats the cost?
I believe that would be up to Comcast, of they want to pursue it. I do doubt they will as they too must at times cause problems with Verizon lines. Mistakes happen both ways, and I don’t think it was intentional.
I think the one to ask for some sort of internet would be Comcast, not Verizon.
Also do you have a neighbor close enough that you could ask to use their internet till you get over the hump?
Well, you neglected to mention your jurisdiction, so you’d never get a concrete answer about regulatory protections, since those depend entirely on jursidictions.
IMHO, this smells more like small claims court to me, assuming you can document real losses.
Of course, I’m no one’s lawyer, and therefore absolutely not yours, and also therefore not dispensing anything which could be construed as legal advice.
The Verizon installers did the same thing to me, too. Idiots cut right through my Comcast cable and nothing in the house worked. Comcast came out the next day and strung a glass cable across the yard to reconnect my service, and then about a week later they came a second time to bury it. At the time I did not call Verizon because Comcast was so fast to fix it. in your case I would call Verizon since you are going to experience a longer turn-around time.
So after becoming totally annoyed at Verizon’s attitude which was absolutely “Perhaps you would be better off telling someone who cares,” and telling me, according to script to basically go away and leave them alone, I sent emails to our county council member, head of the county council, and our House of Rep’s guy who is also a neighbor. A few hours later, I get a call from someone at some major verizon office in Virginia apologizing effusively, and saying here is my private number and we will get back to you asap. I feel 1,000% better already, regardless of whether I get any improvement in my situation. So this is the kind of advice I was looking for. Keep it in mind for future similar questions.
My only problem now is I don’t know who to thank, and who to vote for with absolute certainty in the next election.
IANAL, etc, etc, but you do have a contract w/ Comcast that requires them to provide you service. If they do not provide that service for X days, you should get a credit on your bill for those X days. It’s then up to Comcast to pursue reimbursement from Verizon.
BTW, the Verizon clowns nicked my sprinkler system when they ran their fiber. I’ll admit to not having the energy to fight with them and just fixed it myself.
I know in NJ before anyone digs they have to call a # to have underground lines marked. It looks like in MD they have to as well. Cite:http://www.call811.com/faqs/default.aspx
So if Verizon was supposed to call and didn’t then Verizon messed up.
If Verizon called and the lines were marked correctly and they goofed it’s Verizon’s fault
If Verizon did and Comcast didn’t mark their lines or marked in the the wrong area then Comcast is at fault.
Having said that Verizon Wireless and Verizon FiOS are still two separate companies so getting FiOS to vie you a 4G Hotspot is not likely.
Does Comcast actually come in and knock on the door? My ISP didn’t when they fixed something that was just outside. They only came to the door the time they were unsure of what it was and had already checked everything outside.
Yes, Comcast will actually knock on the door and if you are not home, they will simply go away.
Right, I have a contract with Comcast. However, since they are both in the same business, and in fact hire the same subcontractors that they should be required to immediately repair any damage that they cause. Around these parts internet access is secondary only to a heartbeat. If they had to be inconvenienced for their screw up perhaps they would screw up a little less often. I am thinking that if I went around with bolt cutters and transected a cable I would be in big trouble. Why not them?
I have not asked, but am sure that comcast will credit me for the days without service. Big deal. That is the absolute minimum part of the problem.
One time, TimeWarner came out to fix my neighbor’s internet. In the process, they disconnected my cable and internet (the tech apparently was confused about which connection in the pedestal outside was which).
I called TWC within minutes of their tech leaving the cul-de-sac. Despite a fine mix of reasonable negotiating, whining, and raging against the machine (including going up three levels of managers), it took them three days to come out and hook things back up in their pedestal. And the three days was an improvement over their initial “the next available appointment is in a week” stance.
Here is a previous experience I had with Comcast. There are only two houses on our particular pedestal. The other house did not pay their bills. Comcast came out and unhooked our cable. A few days later they came out and undid it. They insisted that I be there at the time. The next day one of their technicians came out and unhooked us again. This time I insisted on speaking to a supervisor and he had someone come right out and reconnect, but you get the idea.
If Comcast Cable was the typical shallow/unprotected run, kind of their fault it was cut and their problem to fix, don’t you think?
FiOS did not complain when my lawn service punctured their FiOS line. They came out the same day and ran surface cable to restore service, then made appt to dig a deeper trench and put the new line in conduit. No charge and no complaint (more like a shrug and “we really shouldn 't run lines that way”).
My understanding is that if you are going to run Cable or Fiber in a shallow trench with no conduit, you are running the risk that it will get severed by innocent diggers. When my sprinkler guys ripped up the Comcast cable to the neighbors (which crossed a part of my lawn), Comcast came right out to fix it for them, and the attitude seemed to be they were responsible for repair.
