David Risley is the founder of PCMech.com. He is the brains, the thinker, the writer, the nerd.Rather than posting a news item from the tech industry, I simply HAD to share this story with PCMech this morning. As I sit here, I am at Panera Bread working on the MacBook Pro. Why? It isn’t for the coffee. No, it is because some Bright House contractor managed to completely kill all communications to my house this morning.
My neighbor is getting his cable put in, I guess. So, he calls out Bright House. This is the main cable company down here in the Tampa Bay area.
Problem is that Bright House doesn’t have their own people do the work. They hire out to contractors. In this instance, they’re using some guy from CTIS. (from the looks of his truck).
He proceeds to start digging up the grass next to the box at the curb. As you might have guessed at this point, he managed to kill off all of MY communications services. I am with Verizon FIOS.
Here’s The Kicker
I go out and ask him about it. His first response is to say “No, I didn’t do anything. This is all Bright House equipment”. Well, that is the most shocking coincidence, then, is that what I’m supposed to believe?
I go check on some things and then come back out. I tell him that the problem started right when HE started working. He again says “I’m with Bright House.”. I say, yeah, but my cable went out when you started working. He then tells me “Well, what do you want me to do about it?”. He then proceeds to ignore me. While I am asking him about cutting of the cable, he just sits there an acts like I’m not even there.
At this point, I’m PISSED beyond all belief. I proceed to call him a f**king asshole and go back in (yeah, I know - it doesn’t accomplish anything, but you had to see this guy). Just a colossal ball of fail.
As Of Now
I have a Verizon guy coming out this afternoon to fix my system. They ran a test from their office and said, yeah, the guy probably cut the main cable going out to my house. The lady at Verizon said to get the guy’s tech ID later if I can and that they are going to bill Bright House for the repair job.
My Take
I’m a reasonable guy. I understand that mistakes happen and that this guy didn’t mean to take out my cable. But, gimme a break, the LAST thing you should do is act like a damn child and ignore a person talking to you. This guy just wants to do his job and not take any responsibility for the effects he causes. The head in the sand mentality just doesn’t get anybody anywhere.
That is completely unprofessional and it doesn’t say ANYTHING good about Bright House Networks.
Good thing that Panera has free wifi, because now I can post this story to potentially thousands of people before this guy even leaves my neighbor’s house. You gotta love blogging! 
UPDATE 2:17 PM
The Internet has come back online at my house. Verizon had to splice our house cable onto our neighbor’s old FIOS cable to get us up and running. They will need to send a crew out to dig a new master cable in for our house. The Verizon tech told my wife he had SIX calls just today about Verizon cables being cut by Bright House contractors.
HUGE balls of fail. Biblical proportions.
Update 5:18 PM
Got an email into PCMech from Bright House. They wanted to find out who this contractor was to ensure it doesn’t happen again. I am impressed at the followup. It was not expected. Kudos to Bright House for that.
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Drew said:
4/10/2008 1:27 pm
Actually, the dickhead in question (as you so eloquently put it on your site :P) IS in fact typical of BHN (Brighthouse Networks) contractors.
I had BHN come and install new cable into my apartment - and yes I mean they actually had to dig a whole new line! The contractors from CTIS came out 6 times before they finally sent an actually BHN employee to fix the problem. Their response? Nothing seems to be really wrong with it and that it was normal. Uhhh, WTF??
The picture on my HD box was macro blocking and pixelating and I was getting data packet loss, sporadic spikes in speed and all sorts of crazy stuff going on. Normal? I would have rather gone back to Australia and deal with 512k download speeds! (OK - well not really LOL)
So a BHN employee who came out ended up getting 6 different vans here to fix the issue, and in the end, what should have taken 2 days to fix (I did all the trouble shooting before even calling them about it) took 14 days before my cable was properly fixed.
Unfortunately for me, FIOS isn’t available in my apartment complex but it’s definitely high on the list of “requirements” for me new apartment once I get out of here in July.
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dissenting voice reply on July 2, 2008 7:59 pm:
For what it’s worth, both of you got screwed. The question is, “by whom?” A little back ground info; yes BHN uses contractors to do a majority of their installations, (87% or so). In the tampa area they would be Kable Link, CTIS, and Knights Enterprises. (There are a few more, but theese are the primary installers) Now, the part that you may not know, is that these contractors hire independent sub-contractors to do the work. Most of us (yes, I am one) are professional, and knowledgeable about our jobs, BUT there are those that don’t …. have the people skills that the rest of us do. These are the ones that don’t stay in business long. Because we are “independent sub-contractors”, we aren’t as protected as a regular (hourly) employee. If we get negative feedback all we are told is that there is no work for us. We are basicly seperate sole proprieter businesses that hire our services to the contractor.
None of this excuses the attitude about the FIOS drop, it’s meant as information to help see things from our point of view.
The reason that contracting out the work is so popular is that BHN and the contractor have relativly little overhead. The sub-contractor pays for the truck, the tools, the fuel, the commercial auto insurance, the contractors insurance and the upkeep on all of the above. We get paid by the task. Each task has a dollar ammount atatched to it.
As an example; the reconnection of a single family house with 4 outlets 1 digital box, and internet service would pay $34.75 ( $10 for the reconnection of the house to the BHN system, the connection of 3 additional outlets is $6.25per a/o one outlet is included in the reconnect billing, $3.50 for the hook up and demonstration of the digital converter, and $2.50 for the modem install) This install, if done properly, and the house was in BHN spec. should take about an hour and fifteen minutes.
Not bad, right? Keep in mind I said “In Spec”. If the house isn’t in spec we have to make it so, for no additional compensation. Most houses aren’t in spec, due to the fact that specs change continually. We’ll say that the tech averages 2 hrs a job and an average of $150 per day. (this a decent average in this area) That’s $900 for a 6 day week (avg day is 13 hrs totaling 78 hours)
$900 minus overhead ( $150 for fuel, $100 for 1/4 of the truck payment, & $50 for 1/4 of the commercial auto ins. totaling $300.) equals $600 take home divided by 78 hours equals $7.69/ hour. This is befor taxes as we’re 1099 status, no health care, etc.
That breakdown is an example of why we have to move as fast as possible, while meeting specs ( if not in spec, can you say “backcharge”?) in order to be as profitable as possible. I’m personaly sorry to hear that you were treated as you were, it’s not something that I like to hear, as it reiterates the stereotype that contractors are not as good as “regular” employees, when the oposite is generally true for the simple reason if it’s not right, WE DON’T GET PAID! Nor do we get paid by the hour. If I have a task that pays $20 and it takes me and hour to complete that task, great, but if it takes 5 hours (and it does happen)I’ve made $4 dollars an hour, yea.
As for why your drop was cut, I’ve seen a lot of Fios drops that are not burried to depth (8 - 10 inches) and the people that put them in didn’t care about crossing other utilities space in a lot of areas ( I’ve replaces a LOT of Verison damaged drops) Also their fiber optic drop is NOT ARMORED! If you don’t know, fiber optic cable is strands of glass wraped in plastic. Kinda fragile. We use a 13mm plastic armor over our underground cable to help protect it.
As to why the guy didn’t fix your drop…. no tools to do so, fiber splicing equipment is expensive, and one should be trained to do so.
None of this excuses the crappy attitude, but at least you may now understand the contractors in general a little better.
To address the apartment problem, the problem was probably with the tap ( where your unit hooks in with the system. If the Eq. is adjusted wrong, there is simply nothing that a contractor is allowed to do to it. As to why it took 6 contractors before a BHN employee came out, in the event of a tap issue, we make sure that the wiring is good (hence the new line to the apt) and turn it over to a supervisor, who checks the problem and contacts BH (these are BH rules not ours) then it’s supposed to go to the line tech employed by BHN. More times than not the customer calls in about the problem again before the line tech comes out (2-3 wks), starting the process all over again
hope this helps
[Reply]
Ken said:
5/15/2008 5:58 pm
VERIZON contracts there work out also.80% arent even legal US citizens.
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