Squirrels Love AT&T Fiber Internet

Friday morning around 10am I see the infamous BOi truck with the lift parked a couple of houses down the street. I assumed they were working for just one customer and it was a continuation of their work last Monday. I still had internet service so I didn't think much about it. I was more interested in seeing when the yard would dry out enough to mow.

That pictured above is the insulation of AT&T Fiber internet cable. Unlike many across the USA, my cables are not buried but in the air, hanging from utility pole to utility pole. This whole system has been on "temporary service since May 26th, the day of the storm damage. And ... the squirrels for some reason AT&T can't figure out ... love this new Fiber Internet insulation which is made of different material than their old copper wire internet cables.

No photos of the hounds and dogs this morning. I just checked and it is good I only have these few photos, SpeedTest tells me the phone hotspot is barely able to upload photos into this blog ... at 1.67 Mbps ... yes 1 POINT 67. It is loading websites at a little over 12Mbps ... so after this post update this morning I will not be able to come back until I have my regular fast internet back.

It was late afternoon, the yard was finally dry enough to mow. TV weather had the next four days with their lawn mower icon showing 100% ... meaning a good time to mow. So not only did the lack of internet service surprise me but it started raining about the time I fired up the mower.

I had been without internet service since 10am or soon after that truck arrived. Now there were two trucks out front and Watson was at the front windows letting me know someone he did not know was walking across his yard. I found out this crew was hanging brand new cable, starting two houses down from me, then to the back to my neighbors utility pole and then to my pole.

Just so there is no misunderstanding when their "lawn repair crew" shows up in the future to repair our yards AGAIN ... I took a photo of their truck back at my neighbors utility pole .... yes, you guessed it ... the same company that laid down new dirt, seed and straw were back tearing up her and my yard.

Of course they did not want to mess up the ruts they fixed on Monday so they went around them and made new ones. I know to some those don't look like much and I should stop my complaining but once that soil dries completely out that dirt made of clay will be like concrete. Future rains will not level out the soil under the grass and fix the problem ... guess what ... when they come back on Monday they will take their heavy truck with a lift across the yard repair the utility company did a few weeks ago, to get to that pole on the other side of my house.

But there is a question to this mystery.

Deeper ruts, where it felt like I had stepped into a hole when walking through that part of the yard.

They did ask me if it would be okay for them to pull their truck back to the pole, my neighbor's too. With a quick text, my neighbor replied yes. I said it was okay even if it was going to tear up my yard repair. I mean what can I do, they need to do their work and I need my internet service finally fixed.

Their reasoning was, this piece of equipment weighs 95 pounds. As it slides, it is connecting the new cable to their main cable and will wrap it with that thin silver wire. I was a little surprised when I looked out the patio door to see them on a ladder and that 95 pound piece of equipment up on the cables ... so I thought I'd go out and take some photos.

That rope is hooked up over the cable from Spectrum to hold that heavy piece of equipment. They had just lowered it and little did I know when I took this photo, they were done for the day!!!

So my million dollar question is, if you can use a ladder, that rope and string up over a 100' of cable ... why can't you do the same process at my pole and NOT tear up the yard that is growing new grass seed with new weeds mixed in ????

But that is not where this story ends. The guy with the orange striped pants holding that equipment seemed to be the boss of the three man crew. He thanked me for letting them use their truck to get back to the poles, but they had not made it to my pole yet. The plan was they would BEFORE they left for the weekend.

He said "we will run this new cable to your pole and the old fiber cable will be on the ground still hooked up to your service so this block of people do not lose their internet service."

Remember those words because hours later on Friday night the AT&T Tech on the phone told me that never happens in Indiana nor does that happen in all the other 49 states of the USA.  LOL I can't make this stuff up.

As you see they are at the point of that junction box. I always thought it had covered previous splices by the crew weeks ago or was some sort of electrical junction box. After he used his 7/16" wrench (why do I know the size? They lost the wrench in my grass next to the fence 30' behind them and it took them a while to find it) ...

But he gets the box unscrewed as rain water pours out of it from prior rains. Cables were NOT spliced and it was NOT an electrical junction ... it was just there for unknown reasons. Even these guys, that hang cable DAILY for AT&T and Sprectrum did not know and said so ... why it was there.

I wished them a good weekend and went back inside figuring I'd have internet service pretty soon. They had strung that cable using that process from my neighbors pole to here and that was over 150'. They only had about 30' to go to my pole .... but it was getting late, the end of a work day and I would find out later .... this photo is as far as they got. In fact it is the same spot where that junction box was.

As I walk out from the computer room expecting my service to be back online I was in for a rude awakening. The two trucks outside in front of my house were gone. I glanced at my watch and saw it was 4:40pm. I looked at my router that sits behind and next to my tv only to see the blinking red light, not the solid white light.

No internet service.

I glanced out the window and saw no truck at my pole. I didn't see anyone in the backyard. So I let the hounds and dogs out from the garage and watched them sprint through the patio door I left open for them, right to the crime scene ... all four were checking out all of that new cable leaning up against my fence.

I grabbed my camera to take photos of the "crime evidence" plus to see where the new cable went and where the old cable went since the old fiber connection was still hooked up at the pole and at it's main signal source. At least that is why the man told me that was hanging new cable.

This is the end of what I was told ... the new cable. It looked like it had been yanked out of a socket with wires sticking out the end, in this case the encased fiber wire. Tracking the path of the cable it is the new one but I am not sure.

I call AT&T Technical mainly to see if they could check and see if there as a signal on my OLD fiber cable like the guy said there would be. .... I don't like people that lie and I hope to go out Monday only to take photos and not say a word to whomever shows up from that cable hanging company.

Of course with all the storms, AT&T Technical department is pretty busy ... "press 1, state your name and we will call you back in approximately 20 minutes, you will not lose your place in line." 1 hour 10 minutes later I get their call. 

I tell the story to the man on the other side of the phone not knowing until later he already knows my story ... because it is like most of the calls he gets nationwide. "new cable installed in place of old cable and no service".

He said it is a nationwide problem. All the cable hung are done by companies that AT&T contracts out to do that work. Only AT&T Techs, connect the service. As he said "those hanging the new cable NEVER go back and turn on the signal back on to the old cable to keep internet service going".

"We don't want you to have interrupted service so I will have a technician come out tomorrow (Saturday) to give you temporary service."

He is scheduled to show up between noon and 4pm today.

Like I have said before, when this fiber internet is hooked up and running it is fantastic and brings a crystal clear tv picture when streaming shows from channels or apps. It turns usually 680Mbps in the great room where the modem is location and almost 300Mbps across the house to the far corner where my computer is wifi connected.

Going back to Spectrum is being heavily considered. Today will be the 4th time since May 23rd, before the storms, that an AT&T Tech has had to come out to get my service connected again.

I don't want to complain but telling you this as an example only. 

Due to the slow speed of uploading photos ... I had no choice but load one at a time. I normally load all my photos at once before I write anything under them. It has taken me 1 hour 52 minutes to get to this sentence that I am typing now.

The hounds and dogs will be in "jail" today while the technician is here so they will not bother him. "Jail" is the garage that stays in the 70s and has a large bowl of water and plenty of things for Ava to get into. She will drag out on the floor showing me what she found. Henry will look for any kind of food that might be around in corners, Watson will sleep on the cool concrete floor and Walter will bark wanting back inside.

I'll try to get photos of the hounds and dogs early tonight with hopes and plans of a lot of photos for my next blog post.

It's going to be a good Saturday here in "the tropics" of Southern Indiana.