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Lawsuit Accuses Comcast of Cutting Competitor's Wires To Put It Out of Business (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: A tiny Internet service provider has sued Comcast, alleging that the cable giant and its hired contractors cut the smaller company's wires in order to take over its customer base. Telecom Cable LLC had "229 satisfied customers" in Weston Lakes and Corrigan, Texas when Comcast and its contractors sabotaged its network, the lawsuit filed last week in Harris County District Court said. Comcast had tried to buy Telecom Cable's Weston Lakes operations in 2013 "but refused to pay what they were worth," the complaint says. Starting in June 2015, Comcast and two contractors it hired "systematically destroyed Telecom's business by cutting its lines and running off its customers," the lawsuit says. Comcast destroyed or damaged the lines serving all Telecom Cable customers in Weston Lakes and never repaired them, the lawsuit claims. Telecom Cable owner Anthony Luna estimated the value of his business at about $1.8 million, which he is seeking to recover. He is also seeking other damages from Comcast and its contractors, including exemplary damages that under state statute could "amount to a maximum of twice the amount of economic damages, plus up to $750,000 of non-economic damages," the complaint says. CourtHouse News Service has a story about the lawsuit, and it posted a copy of the complaint.
The court should take that $1 million in damages, and multiply it by 100, and order Comcast to (1) Pay $100 Million+, (2) Send a short notice to all of Telecom Cable LLC's former customers Explaining what they did and apologizing, and (3) Order Comcast to pay an additional $100 Million per Year, for every year in which there is not another competing wireline Cable company such as Telecom Cable LLC with at least 229 customers in the area..
Seems to be real twist on the usual definition of Cord Cutting
Maybe they were just trying to stay hip?
Seems like a lot of trouble for 229 customers, I would think the Comcast loses more customers than that every day. From what I've observed of Comcast this could as easily be incompetence as malice, but likely it's a combination of the two. They should pay either way. Did Comcast raise rates after Telecom went out of business?
My roommate had Comcast Internet in the early 2000's. Every time a Comcast truck came through the neighborhood we had technical troubles. One time we went a month without Internet service until Comcast finally sent a tech out to check the pole. The last tech installed a bypass filter backwards.
Comcast's careful cable operations are legendary. They really care about all their customers and the public at large. Right? Right? Remember this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Just because I can hook a shark from a boat, I do no offer to wrestle it in the water.
"[D]uring the time Mr. Luna spent calling, the contractors had cut three additional cable lines. Defendants paid no notice to Telecom’s markings and continued to destroy Telecom’s lines, and Telecom's complaints fell on deaf ears. One would like to believe that the destruction was accidental, but the comprehensiveness of it—coupled with Comcast’s prior interest in Telecom—renders such a conclusion doubtful. Within six weeks, Defendants destroyed or damaged the lines servicing every single Telecom customer in Weston Lakes, and not one of those lines was ever repaired by Defendants."
Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it’s enemy action.
In place of #3, I'd like to see the court use eminent domain to take Comcast's wires and give them to the city so each customer or each neighborhood can choose their own ISP.
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
At a home in Rogers, MN out in the country. We had Verizon recently installed at the time, and Saw a Comcast Truck out by our pole one morning. Figuring he was just hooking up another customer, we thought nothing of it and went about our surfing and Netflix... Then the internet cut out. By the time we made it to the street, all we saw was him pulling a fast U-turn and heading off at high speed. When we walked over to the pole, the lines had just been fresh cut. So we got permission from the city to install a steel conduit over them, 4 feet into the ground, and 20 feet in the air up the side of the pole. Interestingly enough, we had great service from Verizon after that! :-D
He's asking for less than ten years of revenue. While his chances of selling at that price depend on a lot of factors, it's not at all an unreasonable number on its own.
Typically when appraising a company for purchase you'd do something like multiply out by at least 5 years. If you look at their trajectory and they've been growing year over year this might be a low price.
25 years ago when my family finally went from antenna to Comcast cable, one thing they did when installing their cable runs was to snip the connectors off then end of all of the in-house antenna coax that was there before... Tough to go back to antenna when you can't hook it up any more.
Just reading the various reports - from multiple witnesses or directly impacted residents - there appears to be more than enough evidence to suggest that Comcast have been engaging in systematic and wilful criminal behaviour. Deliberately cutting cables belonging to a commercial rival is at minimum criminal damage. Doing so to such a degree and over such an extended period starts to look like a conspiracy to commit a criminal act.
I would like to see a District Attorney offer immunity from prosecution to any Comcast employee willing to come forward with evidence that this practice was being unofficially promoted or condoned by Comcast Management. I am sure that there is at least one employee or former employee who would be willing to talk.
This kind of wholesale sabotage isn't just about the defrauded companies who were injured by Comcast's actions, or the subscribers to those other companies who were disenfranchised and similarly defrauded [companies forced into liquidation aren't going to be able to offer refunds]. This is a test of the entire criminal justice system. This is a bell-weather indicator of whether or not there actually *is* justice today.
We hear a lot of talk about how governments "get business" and how they want to support the "little guy" and "promote growth". Well, here's a golden opportunity for someone to put their grandiose words into action.
We're waiting.
If these actions were perpetrated by multiple individuals in Comcast's employ... well that, right there, is a conspiracy. And its a conspiracy to cause criminal damage and defraud.
Not quite racketeering, but I'm sure that a creative States AG could find more.
Still waiting.
As to why Comcast would resort to these tactics, the answer, simply, is because they work.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
for decades! I founded what I think was the first commercial ISP in my state in 1994. I bought Internet access from Sprint. My connection was down more than up for the first two years since HellSouth kept disconnecting our T1. It sucked paying over $3,500 per month for access when it was down so often. In 1996 I switched to MCI since they claimed to have a better relationship with BellSouth, and I found-out they were wrong. BellSouth ripped-out all of the wiring to our office building and left everyone without POTS lines and me without a T1. BellSouth disconnected an entire five story office building just to try to put us out of business.
Repair costs. Damage to reputation. Business lost from customers who didn't sign up due to the damages.
"The company had limited growth potential."
If that's the case, why did Comcast come into the same market?
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
I feel insulted.
But microwave links as well are being sabotaged by some one. Not sure who it is. Everything from aluminum spray paint on the dish to metallic epoxy injected into the device shorting it out. And of course, making it un-repairable.
And in Texas, all you have to be is a major monopoly and own a few lobbyists, and you get whatever it is you want. Insurance, banks, health care, and telecom frequently write the laws they want to give it to their paid for state congress critter. Sometimes, they even forget to remove the water marks on the legislation, so when you download the proposed bill, it's right there in the metadata. And there are rarely any edits for more than correcting grammar or spelling.
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
Comcast employees admit they cut the wires, but they claim that they thought the wires were abandoned. This is a pretty good defense against the kind of punishments you listed.
If I were the judge, I would rule as follows:
Comcast, if you declare this was accidental, then your right to service that area is hereby denied. You have 6 months to break up that area into a separate company, which will be given to the plaintiff, in addition to any profits you declared for that area, from the time you acted to the time you give the company away.
If instead you declare this was intentional, give us a list of the employees that committed the theft, and actively help us prosecute them. You now owe the plaintiff twice what they requested, but you can keep the service area.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Jail time for every technician involved, and at least a few layers up in management. Folks need to be scared to participate in illegal activities, even when ordered by their superiors.
Do you know what would fix this? Less regulation. Why, if they could do such a thing with laws making this illegal, why they'll be sure to behave much better if allowed to regulate themselves!
Those who do not learn from commit history are doomed to regress it.
If an individual sabotaged a company's property in the same way that Comcast is alleged to have done they would be had up on criminal charges and likely be looking at prison time. This acts as a pretty good deterrent against such behaviour and in cases where it does not everyone at least gets to see that there are significant consequences for seriously bad choices.
If the allegations are true then massive fines against the company will do little to hurt any individuals who are actually responsible for the decision to behave this way and will instead hurt investors and rank-and-file employees in the company collapses. The best deterrent is to make those responsible for the decisions criminally liable for them too. Do not let them hide behind the company: they made the decision they should have to deal with the consequences.
This is what is so nauseating about modern corporate behaviour. It's not that companies misbehave - they are made up of humans so it will always happen - what is terrible is that those responsible for the behaviour make out like bandits while the investors and rank-and-file employees are left carrying the can.
Comcast employees admit they cut the wires, but they claim that they thought the wires were abandoned.
Which is why you typically test for active signal on a line before you cut it.
Yaz
Comcast employees admit they cut the wires, but they claim that they thought the wires were abandoned.
Wires on utility poles are labeled as to who the owner is. If the wires were not marked as belonging to Comcast the contractors legally cannot touch them, regardless of if they appear in use or not, unless they are authorized to by the owner.
This is part of the reason there is lots of red tape involved in getting utility poles replaced.
While living in Chicago, my RCN cable connection would occasionally cut-off dead. I'd call RCN, and the next day a tech would show up to reconnect my cable service at the building inlet cluster.
I was twice told that Comcast/TWC technicians had been instructed to disconnect a couple of their competitors' customers whenever they went to an apartment or condo for an install.
Also, in Santa Monica, CA, when Verizon installed phone service, they cut and removed the existing telephone from-the-pole cabling (likely to have been originally installed at taxpayer expense). Verizon had a money-back guarantee if you were not satisfied with their service. Activating that would have left you with no telephone wiring at all. I am not making this up. I asked the tech why he was cutting and discarding the length of cable that had been pre-existing. He shrugged, and said, "standard procedure."
It's part of a vast conspiracy. First they drive you slowly, one invisibly small step at a time to the brink of madness. Not having the right change for the soda machine, arriving at an intersection just in time for the 10 minute red light, the guy in front of you buys the last cheese danish, the bus is 10 seconds early the one day you run a minute late so you get there just in time for it to close its doors practically in your face and pull away.
This has been going on practically since your birth (the rest of us lead truly charmed lives :-) We're nearing the end-hame now where you'll be ready to .....
Nah, shit happens, that's all this is.
To Comcast, a signal is only active if it's a Comcast signal.
But *I* didn't kill my wife, the guy I paid to did!
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