atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums Wiring - Telecom Carriers - Trunks & Services Outside Plant OSP Construction Cut about 50+ underground main phone lines. Need HELP!!!

Long story short. I'm in some deep trouble. Was using a backhoe to soften up some dirt before I put topsoil on it and level it out then I went maybe about 2 feet deep at most and pulled out wire. It wasnt in conduit or anything. The wire had a whole bunch of electrical tape on it and had about 50 something wires. Later I found out it is the wire for the phone. So now what do I do? I callled up the phone people. (bellsouth) They said they will be here on monday september 10. Am I looking at a huge bill this month or something like 50-100 bucks for the repair? Also yes I am stupid and should be smacked upside my head. I think my neighbors might not have service either but I am too scared to call.


*EDIT*
Any help is greatly appreciated and if anyone in the panhandle of FL (Tallasshaee area) can help then it would be great. Kinda in a panic mode rite now. I looked online to see if there is any fix for this but none so far, so I just called up the phone guy.

if its 25 pair then chances are its more than your service . its telco property , you can't do a DIY fix

I would expect something a bit higher

next time call here first , cover your rear

Welcome to the board, your name may say it all. Hopefully they'll cut you some slack. "Call before digging" is a lesson learned the hard way. Good luck, hope it all turns out for the best, this isn't something you can fix yourself.

25 pair? Like 25 wires I assume? Also more than 100 then I need to start looking for a way of getting some money as to not piss of my parents.

Also thanks so much for the website man. I am gonna have that bookmarked for future reference.

Thanks for the welcome. Yes my name says it all unforutunatly. Yeah I hope they will cut me some slack as well. Yeah I had no clue abou t this call before digging but now I know so I am gonna live up to it and also try and help spread the word. I figured it wasnt something I could fix my self but oh well.

Anyways for anyone that cares. I might post pictures tommorow depending on if they have it fixed or not by tommorow evening around 7 P.M maybe.

Another thing as well, I dont think the wire got sliced but acutally from what I observed it was in the black insulation and there was wires just sticking out color coded and had about maybe an inch of bare wire, then I digged more (By shovel) to look for the other end and then I saw a something wrapped in electrical tape and a metal rod type of thing sticking out (I guess grounding?) then I dug farther out to see what this thing wrapped in electrical tape leads to and it looks like the same wire AWG wise. I think what happened was the wires just got streched out from the tape as its not really broken but then again I 'm just a complete fool after what happened today. Now I just gotta wait for my parents to find out.

*EDIT*

I looked up 25 pair and I think thats what I just cut. Dang.

No, 25 pair would be 50 wires.

Got ya. Also how easy is it for them to join the wires? I mean there are like 10 white, red, orange, blue,yellow ETC wires. So they just pick any white wire for example and then order it out?

So pair one is any white and blue and pair 2 is orange and white? It cant be that easy can it?

in telephone talk a pair is two wires , you mentioned 50 wires so that would be a 25 pair cable

always call the 800 number and then if you hit a cable in a spot that they didn't mark your home free as to liability

like Bill said lets hope they cut you some slack on repair costs

So if I call that 800 number and then I break the wire its free to me becuase they didnt mark it? (Breaking the wire where they didnt mark it) Got ya. Thanks. Also yeah lets hope they do cut me some slack. Anyone here have any kinda experience like this with Bellsouth?
Also that 25 pair you speak of how easy is it for them to fix it and did it knock the neighbors offline aswell? If it did knock down the neighbors about how many peoople am I looking at? In our community there is about 50 house maybe but on my street maybe 8-12 houses. I asked my neighbor accross the street and they said it good but I dont have the guts to go next door.

*EDIT* I wonder if the house insurance will cover this wire? Probably not huh.

I would say yes it knocked out the neighbors too. Not all that hard to fix, depending on the damage of course, they'll probably have to put in a piece of cable. I doubt house insurance will cover, would be more of a personal/business liability type insurance, kind'a like what we carry, but couldn't hurt to ask if the need arises.

So you say it not that hard to fix correct? There is not much damage done to the wires so I think I am good on that. Its just a matter of reconnecting the wires I suppose. Also why would they wanna charge me in upwards of 100 dollars if it aint that hard. I mean ripping people off is what business is but I dont think anything over 75 bucks is reasonable for just connecting the wires. That would be just plain bullsh** rite there. Oh well that life I assume. Hopefully they dont charge me up the but. If this is the case I'm gonna tell all my friends to switch to bellsouth. :lol:

So now as it stands how worried should I be? Also what is underneath all of that black electrical tape?

Don't worry yourself to death, not much you can do about it. Telco's weighted time is around 150 per hour. Like I said all you can do is hope they cut you some slack. Also, it's not that hard to fix, if you know what you're doing. Just relax and wait and see, you can't undo it.

Do yourself a favor and play dumb when they show up. If you go out there telling them that it's easy and $100 is highway robbery to fix your screw up they will take all day and roll a whole wiring crew (with trucks) and replace 40-feet of cable, all at YOUR expense. The telco is not walmart, they don't price match, or have a low-price guarantee.

Your best bet is to throw yourself at their mercy, let them use the backhoe if they want, be helpful, and go "oooh" and "ahhhh" every time he touches the wire. It will make him feel like a hero and he will cut you slack hopefully. Remember, he's there cause of you, not because he was scheduled to be.

BTW, judging from how verizon charges big money to do small things around here (when they are scheduled weeks in advance), i'd guess you would be looking at a high 3-digit, maybe low 4-digit bill. Remember, that $150 ballpark that bill mentioned was BEFORE it became an emergency service outage.

Call the 800-number monday morning and ask them if the wire is there. If they say no, tell bellsouth you called and it wasn't on the map. Maybe you will get lucky.

FWIW the materials (splice case and splices) are about $100 and the labor is somewhere near 1.5 hours to do this if you haven't stretched the cable too much. (YMMV).

None of us here could plead ignorance for not calling Miss Dig, or whoever you have in your state, but you just might pull it off.

Use a lot of "I didn't know" and "I never expected" etc.

It can't hurt.

Carl

150 is that max? And is that per worker of 150 an hour flat fee? I know price varies per telco but at least I got an idea of what the cost is. I will try and relax as your rite you cant undo it.
Yeah throw myself at their mercy is the best idea so far. I'll let him use the backhoe as much he wants. I will try to call the 800 number but I got classes tommorow from 9am- 2:30 pm. I think by then the guys will be done if not then I will call. hopefully i might get lucky. Not counting on it though.

Thanks for the info Mr. Carl. So I guess if I get some guy that is not lazy and does what he is supposed to then it will be no more than 2 hours I hope? Also ignorance cant descibe what I did today. Just cant even think about it no more. Very bummed out. ;( I will use the I dont know etc.

My dad just got back from Atlanta and I told him what happened and he was bummed out too. He said he did it once a long time ago and they charged him around 2000-2500 I think the teclo was Knology. Anyways it seems unfair to make him pay for it if its that much so I might as well get a job if its anything more than 200 bucks. I hope Mcdonalds or BKing is looking for someone to cook or something damn it. :rolleyes:

Take a deep breath and a nip and let us know the outcome.

Down here I would expect a bill in excess of $200.and hopefully no more than $500.

It doesn't work that way , you call give them the address at least two business days ahead of the dig and they notify all utility's who either send someone to mark or call and tell you they have nothing in the area .

by digging without calling first you are also in violtion of fl law and can be cited


so your dad did it and you didn't learn ?

why shouldnt you be charged for your mistake ?
why should the cost be shared by those that do follow the law ?

If you were working as a homeowner on your own property, for example doing landscaping, they tend to be a bit more lenient. If you were there in the capacity of a contractor, then the state may levy up to a $10,000.00 fine for not calling for a utility location PLUS repair costs. It's best to represent yourself as a homeowner who just made a mistake and hopefully, they will be patient with you.

This is off subject, but does anyone know what Bell's charge for underground fiber repairs are? I've been watching the development next to me get fios,I'm not sure how many strands are in each cable,but everything is underground.-----John

Don't know, and pray I never have to find out! That otta hurt BIG time.

Dave

It may not be just the cost of the fiber repair but reimbursement for loss of revenue while the fiber is down as well. When they roll out the little fiber trailer it's not pretty.

I has someone cut the fiber to our billing office (off-site) once and it was estimated we were loosing around 1,000,000 a day from it being down. Luckily the contractor who cut the fiber had enough insurance to cover the damages.

I have heard of some being a LOT higher than that.

For your cut cable, they may have mercy on you.

If you've got a mission-critical application going get fiber coming in from TWO different directions. Get a PBX with redundant CPUs etc., have a disaster plan.

What are you going to do when:

A drunk knocks down the pole outside the building and you lose fibre, copper, electric.

Telco does an upgrade on their CO and you lose service for a day.

Your server crashes.

And on and on and on.

What's your plan "B"?

Years ago I did Disaster Avoidance and Recovery Consulting for a major Multinational. I was amazed at the stories I got from the people I spoke to at various large companies. Usually I was there AFTER they had a crisis and couldn't recover from it in a timely fashion. They would lose(or had lost) millions but it never occurred to them that something might happen to them. Accidents and disasters were always something that happened to OTHER people.


Sam

In this case the building is about 3 blocks away and someone cut the 36 strands of SM fiber and 300 pair copper I had running to the building. The main service coming in to our main equipment room does have redundant fibers coming in to feed our OC3, OC12, OC48, and Mega-Link for data service. We are the main hub for the northern part of the state and feed other like National guard, state police and other hospitals.

It never seems to matter how much you do , you can not plan on everything. And in this case Sh@# happed. We were able to restore service in about 24 hours. Luckily the building working hours are 8:00 to 5:00 so we did the bulk after normal working hours.

But these guys didn't dial the 1-800 call before you dig number either and this is what happened. I even had signs made up with all the number to call before digging and placed them the entire route. They dug beside one of them with the infamous backhoe and cut the cables.

After talking with our LA one call people they told me that I can still expect to have a cable cut every 3 years even being a member with plats of our OSP cabling locations marked.

I guess Deepsht has sticker shock or else is waiting for bill.Re fiber: with phone,tv and internet, trucks will roll faster for repair,but only so many techs are certified for fiber.When I took course I had to get better pair of glasses. To work at nite on that stuff has to be interesting to say the least.----------John

I'm having trouble working up too much sympathy. If you are operating heavy equipment you need to follow the laws that apply to underground construction. I know it's a cliche by now but if someone needs to use their only phone to call for emergency help and their line is broken because of a problem like this, I would feel a lot worse about that than the bill for repairs.

and to top things off im just glad he didnt hit a gas line

Well, I can sympathize with the guy.
Shortly after the "Call Before Digging" law became the law of the land in Texas the owner of the company I worked for cut a 100 pair cable with an auger. We truly were not aware of the law and we were nowhere near the right of way.
The home owner told us where the water and sewer lines were and there was no gas line or underground power in the area so we proceeded to dig.

Long story short, one of the managers from the telephone company told us we were going to have to pay for the repair. The home owner told the manager that the telephone company was going to have to pay him back rent for the use of his property.

The cable was abandoned and a new one was ran within the right of way. The telephone company never billed us for the repair and the homeowner never billed for the rent.

You can bet I learned the lesson. I don't dig nuthin' without calling for a locate first!

I have a client that is a kids summer camp. He called one day to say they had cut a phone cable. They've got about 2 miles of 2 pair buried feeding all the tenting areas & they're always doing something, so it was no surprise.

On arrival I'm told that they were digging to put in a couple of gate posts and hit this cable dead center. 50 pair feeder to their camp. I told them Bell had to fix it, but he insisted that I patch it "for now". Being THEIR cable, sure. I told them it would be temporary as I don't do that kind of repair.

They then proceeded to tell me that they had cut 6 buried drops across the field when they were digging a new ditch. Man, you'd think they'd stop after the first one.

Dave

I wonder if Deepsht's father killed him from grief over the teleco bill

Folks, the original poster admitted that he made a mistake and that he was in way over his head. Does this really need to become a discussion about how much trouble he's in? Not to mention that he hasn't been back since his original post.

Please use PM or EM if you want to share war stories about similar situations. Don't sit here and try to make people more fearful of the situation that they are in. They came here for help, not for ridicule.

I was asking because I was curious what the $$$ damages came to from his LEC. Was hoping for an update if all. Like most times I probably didn't word it correctly. My apologies.

only 2 ft deep sounds like it may be a private cable though

I've seen Verizon go both ways on charges. I had a customer here in the Finger Lakes who was expanding the parkinmg lot and his parking lot contractor did not call. I called a Verizon manager that I knew and had it repaired in less than two hours. By right, Verizon should have charged the contractor, but they didn't. Probably had something to do with my friendship with the manager. Or it might have had something to do with the fact that Verizon had run the cable from the pedestal to demarc, but only ran it a couple inches down.

A second scenario came when a Mennonite cut a cable on his property. It was a major cable and it cost him (Verizon too) $800.00. He was definitely bummed! So it is a matter of whom yu know.

I've repaired a few of these cables myself but wouldn't trespass on telco property. In the cases I have repaired cable, it is to an individual subscriber, not a major cable.


Al Dukes

Sorry to keep beating what's probably a dead horse - but I'm with soyons-expositifs on this.... aside from hitting a gas line, it would have been just as easy to have hit a certain rather thick 3 conductor aluminum cable. Assuming he survived that, I don't even want to guess at the cost of fixing it, since splicing isn't an option. Since the power company owns everything up to the meter... and I doubt they'd be interested in using his backhoe for liability reasons, I can easily see the bill in the $1500 - $2000 range, plus whatever fine the power company felt like handing out that day, and possibly plus the cost of a new bucket. All I have to compare it to is the cost of running a new water or sewer line to your house, which usually runs upwards of $7500; of course in that instance you are paying a plumber, not a utility.

And it could have been even worse than that..... high voltage lines run underground (and not all that deep) in the easement on the edge of my property. I wouldn't go anywhere near that area with even a shovel, whether it was marked or not.

I'm not trying to beat up on the guy - just pointing out that he should put aside the cost for a moment and be glad he's still alive; whatever the cost came out to be - I consider him to be very fortunate.

Having said all that, I hope things worked out for him OK.

Underground triplex can indeed be spliced. Here's an NTSB report about how the failure of one of those splices overheated an adjacent gas line resulting in a leak and explosion:

https://ncsp.tamu.edu/reports/NTSB/ntsbPipeReport/PAR0101.pdf

I got a call from one of my regular customers a couple of months ago. Her husband had been trimming back the hedge with electric clippers and had managed to chop a cable where it dropped down the pole to a splice.

They only live two minutes walk from here, so I went round to take a look. Fortunately, it was was only about a 6-pair cable running to a few houses at the end of the road; if he'd hit one of the other drops he'd have cut off the whole road, including himself. Unfortunately, he's one of those people whose first reaction to anything he does wrong is to blame somebody else:

"Shouldn't have put their &@#!%& cable in such as %^!@&* stupid place!"

I managed to get his wife to convince him that being nice to the BT engineer when he showed up would make the repair job much smoother (as would offering cups of coffee, etc. of course!).

Luckily, the cut was relatively close to the splice and there was sufficient slack, so the repair was an easy one-man job only taking a short time. They didn't get billed.

Even the "big guys" get it wrong somtimes. A couple of summers ago road contractors chopped through two 100-pair cables between here and the C.O.