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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..
Was that referring to Comcast customers? If so, that number seems a bit high.
"[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.
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.
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.
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.