Yesterday evening I noticed my FiOS service was completely dead - no TV and Internet. This had never happened before. I was perplexed but not too upset. I figured it would be a quick call to resolve the issue because fiber and optical communications are most reliable unless someone screws up.
While on the phone with Verizon, I remembered having glimpsed a contractor for Comcast installing new conduit with a slit trenching machine. This install was parallel to the path of the primary Verizon fiber feed into my neighborhood. My gut told me this was no coincidence.
I drove to the area to immediately notice two Verizon techs with their heads in a major concrete pull box. Sure enough, they tell me, the Comcast contractor cut a 144-count fiber cable. Surprisingly, they did not look angry or verbally berate the contractor. Then I noticed it - there were yellow markings for gas, red for electric, green for sewer, blue for water and orange for CATV. But there were no Verizon markings. Someone had slipped up at Verizon and now they were looking at replacing and splicing 500 feet of fiber under outage conditions. They splicer was there, but the new fiber had yet to arrive. He figured it would 3am before he was done.
Sure enough, I awoke to green lights everywhere and two kids happily watching Saturday cartoons.
I'm pretty impressed how fast Verizon responded to the outage and how quickly they repaired the damage. Now, it they can only respond so effectively to mark out requests...
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