January 12, 2005

9:57 AM

I've had Vonage for a year + now and have no intention of going back to Verizon. And yet when I called Verizon to get them to detach and remove their ugly wires from my home, they want to bill me for the work. What are my rights?
posted by stupidsexyFlanders to (18 comments total)

their ugly wires from my home

Which wires? The outlets in the walls?
posted by Steve_at_Linnwood at 10:26 AM on January 12, 2005

Well...if you're not their customer, why would they be inclined to do work (that would presumably benefit you, not them) for free?
posted by sageleaf at 10:32 AM on January 12, 2005

I'm not sure what your rights are, but if you ever think you even might want to or have to sell your house and move, you might want to reconsider. I can't imagine not having the house wired for telephone service does it any good at all when it comes to asking price, because the new buyer will have to pay to get it hooked up again, plus wait for phone service until it is hooked up again.
posted by jacquilynne at 10:37 AM on January 12, 2005

Yeah, what jacquilynne said. Don't do that.
posted by xmutex at 11:15 AM on January 12, 2005

If you want to really know what your rights are, talk to a lawyer and pay him or her to do the necessary research.

I doubt that you have any legal right to force the phone company to remove their wiring from your property at their expense, any more than you could force the city to dig up your yard and remove the water lines at its expense just because you find it offensive to be connected to the water system, or force any other utility provider to foot the expense of removing any cables or linkages to your property.

It's not like they're doing any actual harm, apart from offending you. And it's not like the phone company stole onto your land late one night and vandalized you home by attaching cables to it; connection to a phone system is a normal service.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 11:18 AM on January 12, 2005

Laws undoubtedly very where you are, but around Canada, there is something called a demarcation point, or 'demarc' in telephone company lingo. It's the point where the wires stop being owned by the phone company and officially become your problem.

Usually it's a pretty obvious box in the basement right where the line enters the house.

The phone line crosses the demarc, then splits for the various extensions in your home. Likely the ugly wires are yours and removing them isn't Verison's problem.
posted by Leonard at 11:23 AM on January 12, 2005

I agree that this seems like an extreme step to take, but if you are talking about the outside lines you might look at this link for a phone company in Iowa. According to the information on that page (which perhaps could be extended to other states/Verizon), it would appear that it is the phone company's responsibility to repair outside lines. Maybe you could argue that includes removing them?

However, I really think that R_X has it...
posted by handful of rain at 11:28 AM on January 12, 2005

I'm talking about the wire that attaches to my house. The potential impact of no landline phone service on the resale value of the home is not a concern. What is a concern is the appearance of the home. I shouldn't have to have extraneous cables hanging off my house if I don't want them, and I shouldn't have to subsidize Verizon's failure to have me as a customer.

The line is Verizon's property. I am not a customer of Verizon. I just want their property removed from my house. I would detach it myself, but it attaches to the phone pole on the other side of my neighbors yard, so they would have several hundred feet of loose cable laying in their yard.

The phone company
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 12:01 PM on January 12, 2005

Whoops, scratch that last line.
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 12:03 PM on January 12, 2005

If you know how to safely detach the cable, detach it and then drop a tree branch on the thing. When the loose cable is laying across the neighbors yard, I'm sure they can call the phone company and tell them to come repair it. When they come, don't allow them to connect it to your property.
posted by crazy finger at 12:32 PM on January 12, 2005

Yes, the line is Verizon's property. And the electrical lines into your house are the electric company's property, and the water lines are the city's property, at least in all probability. But guess what -- just because you're off the grid, the electric company isn't going to come out and spend money to physically remove servicing cables to your house just because you say it's unsightly. Nor are you likely to be able to force them to do so at their expense, at least not unless you can demonstrate that your particular connections and cables are so ugly that a reasonable observer would agree that they're offensive. I suspect that any legal authorities you take the matter to will treat you as a crank, since your complaint depends on a degree of aesthetic sensitivity that strains the imagination.

If you want a real answer instead of an argument about it or a soapbox to complain from, go hire a lawyer to look into the matter for you.

Don't do anything yourself to the cable, especially now that you've told Verizon what you want and established a motive to do that. You wouldn't want to be on the hook for damaging their property, or for causing them to have to spend money to fix your neighbor's service.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 12:48 PM on January 12, 2005

Just for reference, policies for the construction, maintenance and removal of your regional carrier's telephony gear are covered in tariffs that were approved by your state's public services or public utilities commission as law. These tariffs can be found here on Verizon's web site, or on the web site of your specific state commission. They do vary quite a bit both in terms of pricing and procedure on a state and community level; since you don't have your location in your profile, it's hard to say specifically what the rules are in your area.

Commonly, though, the rules are this -- the infrastructure for local phone service is a public utility, like that of gas, power or electricity, and coordination of any modification of these utility lines needs to be coordinated by the terms of the appropriate company's tariffs by state law. There are very specific costs associated with specific construction requests, including disconnection services. If what Verizon is quoting you for the disconnection of their service is what's in the tariffs, then they're acting in accordance with state regulations and you have little recourse other than to just pay for the disconnection. The disconnection really does have a tangible cost in the real world -- I'm not sure why you wouldn't worry about the drop in the value of your home, but you're resistant to paying Verizon for them to come and perform a service for you.

If, on the other hand, what they're quoting you is out of line with the tariffs, you should threaten to approach your state public services/utility commission and file a complaint. This will usually get the regional carrier to act in accordance with the tariffs; if they do not, check with the local commission on what the complaint process entails.

If you do not believe that the tariffs are acting in the public interest, you may wish to also write a letter to the commission and your local legislators to affect change.
posted by eschatfische at 12:50 PM on January 12, 2005

also, what if you decide you want to use DSL instead of cable? what then?
posted by chrisroberts at 1:29 PM on January 12, 2005

You might also contact Verizon and see if they have any plans to "upgrade" / "repair" residential lines in your area. That is, are they planning to cycle through and disconnect the old wires and set up new wires any time soon. I imagine they aren't, but you could ask. If they are, have them only complete half the process.

I sympathize with you. I'm hoping that when we build our house we can get all of the lines buried.

Good luck.
posted by Alt F4 at 1:51 PM on January 12, 2005

Thanks, all, for your thoughts, particularly eschatfische. It sounds like I'm not going to get anywhere with this.

And ROU_Xenophobe, you can kiss my ass. If you want to help, then help, but it's not useful tell me only a lawyer can tell me my rights (I'm aware that AskMe is not a law firm), it's not useful to point out that the phone co. isn't likely to do this without charging me (this was the central fact of my question) and it's not useful to question my aesthetic sensibilities for wanting cables removed from my house. Finally, it's especially not useful to accuse me of not wanting a real answer. What the fuck?
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 1:58 PM on January 12, 2005

Just my two cents, if you are "aware that AskMe is not a law firm" and ask a question which is rather unusual, and probably best answered by a land-use lawyer or city official, I think it's not out of line for someone to tell you to speak with a lawyer, or to say there's no real answer to be found here.
posted by efalk at 2:14 PM on January 12, 2005

R/X gave you advice, which is what you were asking for. Just because you don't like that advice doesn't mean you can be an asshole about it. Grow up.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 3:21 PM on January 12, 2005

Just cut the bloody thing at your neighbor's pole. We had an wayward line on our property recently (four houses on the land) -- it had fallen but not cut-off anyone's service so we just lopped the thing off as high as we could reach with pole loppers and voila -- no more line.
posted by Dick Paris at 3:41 PM on January 12, 2005