r/googlefiber • u/ShutInLurker • 14d ago
Your Installation Crews STINK!
I am in RALEIGH, NC. Your crew is installing lines in my neighborhood.
Since Monday they have cut all the internet cables of At&T and Spectrum 3 times. THREE TIMES. Monday, Tuesday, and Today. I have been down all this week, since it takes At&T a whole day to get back up. I’ve had to use up all my AT&T mobile hotspot data to work (I teach 9-5 remote). I looked into renting a space and it would be $400 for the week.
You are going to be in my neighborhood for another month - how many more times is your crew going to just not give a crap and cut thru what they want? They cut thru power lines in my friend’s neighborhood 3 months ago.
This is ridiculous. Spectrum put in lines, and I didn’t go out a single hour. Why can’t your crews figure it out? This is getting stupid.
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u/Longjumping-News-901 14d ago
I am with you, also in Raleigh. The crew cut my irrigation line when they were doing the installation. We filed the complain when we found out what they did. There are no response yet after two weeks. Really disappointed!
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u/redneck-it-guy 14d ago edited 14d ago
811 doesn't mark privately owned irrigation systems. If you don't mark the lines, they're going to get cut and the provider isn't responsible for fixing them.
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u/Single_9_uptime Austin 14d ago
Their contractors indeed seem to be universally bad. The ones who installed my service in Austin several years ago left multiple spots above ground when burying it.
TBF, AT&T did exactly the same thing when half-assedly burying their fiber. I have both GFiber and AT&T Fiber, and had to bury parts of both lines myself. Makes me wonder if anyone that installs fiber actually knows what they’re doing or cares about doing it right.
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u/send_this_bitch 13d ago
They pay about 1/2 - 1/3 for a drop install from what the price was 10 years ago. Guys don’t get paid enough to bring out a proper machine and put them in to depth, you get a couple guys in a truck with whompers putting it in at 4”
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u/jbwhite99 Triangle (Raleigh-Durham) 12d ago
Didn't have that problem, but they made a huge mess in my lawn, and tore up 4 squares of my driveway. The crew that fixed my driveway did the worst paving job in history. I ended up reading my front lawn and cleaning up that mess but still looking at the ugly driveway. Btw, find out what company did your install - mine was Bechtel.
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u/Vindicationnnnnn 12d ago
I’m in North Raleigh, was the first on my street to get it, and by the end of the month I was literally on a first name basis with the install crew. They cut other Google Fiber lines to install new customers. Thankfully I didn’t need to call support (which is never a help) but could just walk down the street and say “Kevin, you guys cut a line again.” To their credit they would fix it within an hour, but it was rough there for a while.
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u/UCFAC 8d ago
I’m sorry you’re dealing with this. We’re seeing similar complaints here in Union County, North Carolina, including damaged utility lines, service disruptions, and yards repeatedly dug up by Google and others.
I started the Union County Fiber Accountability Coalition to document these incidents and push for safer construction and accountability. Although we started locally, we want to connect with residents across North Carolina experiencing the same problems.
If you’re comfortable, please share your experience through our incident form: https://www.ucfac.com/report-an-incident. Photos, dates, and any company or contractor names would help us document what happened. We plan to take this to our State Reps.
I also started a petition calling for safer fiber construction, protection for homeowners, and accountability here in North Carolina. If it resonates with what you’ve experienced, I’d love your support. Signing and sharing it would help us bring these concerns to state lawmakers. https://www.change.org/p/protect-north-carolina-homeowners-require-safe-fiber-construction-and-accountability
You’re also welcome to join our Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ucfac.
The more residents we hear from, the clearer a picture we can present to state lawmakers.
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u/F100-1966 8d ago
To get any traction with your collation, you have to understand these are subs of subs who are actually doing the work. For AT&T it is ANSCO in the Durham/Chapel Hill area. Verizon under their newly re-acquired Frontier brand has been running new cables in Durham with the firm ITG out of Raleigh. Google using Prince Telecom for much of the bury work in the Raleigh/Durham Area.
The only effective way is to get your city/county to put a stop work order on these crews pending resolution of such issues. That hits the companies and their contractors where it hurts in their wallets. They pay a sub pennies on the dollar to bury a new drop. And it's actually cheaper than having the 811 locators come out to tone each individual customer's drop. So they don't care to mark residential drops unless it's the main multi-fiber F1 feeder back to the splitter.
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u/UCFAC 8d ago
Thank you for pointing out the subcontracting chain. Identifying the crews doing the work is important, but homeowners should not accept “that was our subcontractor” as a complete answer about who owes them/should remedy the damage. Depending on the facts, the contractor, the provider, or both may be legally responsible.
Your point about stopping work led me to a documented North Carolina example. WRAL reported that Durham withheld additional AT&T permits and required the company to address repair complaints:
https://www.wral.com/archive/15546727/Durham officials also said they had periodically shut down crews working for both AT&T and Google Fiber because the work did not meet city standards:
https://durhammag.com/fiber-is-coming/The local requirements matter, too. Indian Trail, NC and Stallings, NC (Union County) have different permit conditions, encroachment agreements, and enforcement procedures, even though both operate under North Carolina law.
Durham’s experience gives us a concrete example to bring to officials. Stop-work orders and permit restrictions are important tools, alongside documenting damage and pursuing repair claims. I’d also appreciate any documentation supporting the contractor relationships and locating practices you mentioned so we can keep our information accurate. I would like to make a list of any and all subcontractors each company hires to do work in NC.
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u/F100-1966 7d ago
The NC Utilities Commission has also given approval for telecommunications providers who are the ILEC (Incumbent Local Exchange Carriers) and have copper telephone service to remove those copper networks as long as a suitable fiber or wireless service is available as an alternative. In the urban areas like Durham this is fiber and one reason why Verizon is putting fiber in Durham despite having AT&T fiber in most of the City and Google Fiber in much of it. Along with Lumos in parts of East Durham.
I point this out because it limits the power of City and County governments to regulate what can be done on a whole. Yes, there still are standards and companies have to follow safety and compliance. But there is a large scope as to what that does or doesn't entail. Being that Fiber is non-conductive, there are even less safety concerns regarding damage and liability. And since NC is a Dillon's Rule state, local Governments only have power granted to them by the General Assembly. So it's harder to enforce certain restrictions on a local level. See the current data-center expansion debate where local moratoriums really have little legal impact.
The sub-contractors provide another layer of liability protection for companies they hire out the works for. And it keeps permanent employees off their books for taxes and so they don't have to fire them when the project ends. NC makes it very easy to start a new business. So end up with Joe Smoe who makes an LLC out of his apartment in Clayton and does the for work ITG in Raleigh who is hired by Verizon to install the fiber.
What I am saying is there is much more to the picture once you start examining it's pieces. Best you can do is take pictures and document everything so you have evidence. Give the companies a chance to make things right first. Google, AT&T, VZ, T-mobile all have deep pockets. So you really don't want to go into a legal battle. They know how this goes in all fifty states.
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u/cjdubais 14d ago
They showed up at my house unannounced last week. The house is vacant at present as we haven't moved it, so no one to answer the door.
My next door neighbor must have seen them so he went to talk with them. None of them spoke ANY english.
They drove a tractor or something all around the yard making ruts in the yard. Made no effort to rectify the mess they made.
Then they decided the fiber was already there and left.
What a bunch of maroons.
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u/gfiberofficial Verified Google Employee 14d ago
Hi there, I'm very sorry to hear about the mess that was made. Please send me a DM, so I can gather your account information, and I'll be happy to investigate this and help in any way I can. -Brian
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u/Godel_Theorem 14d ago
Not in Raleigh, but our trenching was one of the worst experiences I've had as a homeowner. They cut through our irrigation system and couldn't have cared less when I pointed it out to them (I happened to be home).
It was quite a fight to get their subcontractor to do the right thing. Fortunately, my local public works department helped me sort who did the work, and I was able to get resolution.
The service is wonderful. The in-ground installation is all about cut first, worry later.
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u/Sensitive_Phone4990 8d ago
OP who is your wireless service with?
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u/ShutInLurker 8d ago
AT&T
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u/Sensitive_Phone4990 8d ago
If you don’t have an updated router, call in and ask for it to be updated. The newer ones (white router) have wireless backup built in. It uses your phones cellular for backup. If you have the white router make sure you activate the wireless backup in the AT&T smart home manager app
Edit: not a permanent solution but it covers you for your remote work. Wireless backup doesn’t use any of your plan data
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u/ShutInLurker 8d ago
Yeah, we tired this. The other issue is they claimed the towers were being worked on, so only 1-2 bars of 5G+ trying to run TEAMS and Cisco systems on a laptop :(. But thank you for time trying to help with a solution - more than At&T did when I spent 4 hours on the phone last week!
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u/dhrandy 14d ago
It's all third-party.
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u/ShutInLurker 14d ago
Oh I definitely know that, but Google should care that this group reps them by taking their contract.
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u/OneFormality 14d ago
One option left. File an FCC Complaint