Comcast XFINITY → Not servicable, but Comcast pulled cable under my driveway

Hi!

So about 5 months ago a Comcast crew came to my rural street in Boyds MD and began digging a trench along the side of the road and pulling what one of them called three-way cable (I gather it can carry phone, TV, and Internet). They built these fancy access "door" into the ground...crossed under the street to my side...kept going...went under my driveway (cable was spooled in my yard for a few days), and kept going about another mile.

I figured...wow..I can get HSI soon! Nope. Have asked several times and my property remains "unserviceable".

What I want to know is...what the heck were they burying out here if not cable for consumers? There is a cell tower down towards where they brought the cable, but they didn't bring it out there to the tower. As far as I know they just sort of stopped somewhere in an empty patch of road.

What the heck was that anyhow? Is there a way I can find out?

Thanks!

Wondering.

Probable trunk line.

You MAY be serviceable soon (which means eventually)
First comes the trunk, then the branches, leaves, flowers, and eventually fruit.
Pie may be many months away

Sounds like fiber. That door sound's like a splice enclosure. It's possible the fiber was run for back haul to that cell site. There are many instances where fiber may run past an address but is still not serviceable for that address. It all depends on your distance to the coax plant.

I'm pretty sure it was fiber actually as there are all these posts along where they dug it that says "warning fiber"... which is a pretty good piece of evidence.

So I gather then that this fiber is for something other than me.

What's it used for? There's not many homes on this road, and the direction it went...well there's nothing out there at all really.

Is there no way I can leverage this line under my driveway to get some HSI (can I pay for a link to it?).

If it headed towards a cell tower, it probably, as someone else mentioned, feeds it for back-haul. Locally, we are wiring up all the sprint and Verizon towers. For Sprint at least, we run fiber to a point at the road, and Sprint has another contractor that runs fiber from the tower to the road, and we connect together.

As far as you being able to hook to it, probably the only chance you would have is if you requested metro-e service, as that is fiber based. You could also see what the requirement in the franchise for your city/county says about homes per mile that they are required to service. Or, go into a local service center and ask them for contact information abut someone you could talk to about possibly having service extended. You didn't say how far away from your location the closest serviceable area is.

»business.comcast.com/ent ··· backhaul

Firstly thanks to everyone whom has chimed in, this has been very informative.

Based on the feedback I'm nearly 100% certain this must be a back-haul line, and I'm nearly as certain that the mentioned Metro E either won't be available or would be cost prohibitive for me.

Someone had asked how far away the closest service is from my home (I think that was the question). AFAIK about 1/4 mile up the road some folks have Comcast.

I stopped in at the local Comcast service center the other day to inquire about this also, but they don't let you speak to anyone that actually knows what's what...but they were friendly and got me a ticket. The lady I spoke with said that my past requests for service indicated I was file miles away from the "cable plant" and that made me un-serviceable, but I guess they'll check again (maybe 5th time is a charm).

I've also looked up the details on the Montgomery County franchise, and the population density for where my home is almost certainly does not meet the level needed to require Comcast to provide service.

I guess I'm just one of the millions of Americans that will be doomed to either live with satellite data caps and meh service or to live without the Internet.

The shroud of the dark side (aka the last mile problem) has fallen.

Sigh...any other ideas?

see if there are any WISPs (wireless isp's) in your area that could provide you service.

could be a better alternative to high-latency satellite.

Thanks BradyR...I just came across a wisp in the area called RapidDSL, and dropped an inquiry form into their site. Fingers crossed!

Sounds like cell backhaul like someone said. Chances are it's a 12 count fiber that's leaving from a larger splice location going towards the cell site. The fiber will then get spliced to what we call a "strap fiber" which is basically just a lead to the actual tower. They'll throw in a mux, certify it, then turn up the tower when its ready. The fact that Comcast now has facilities along your house opens up the door for them to start the framework of building out a node in your area depending how far you are from the hub.

Like others said, under that door is probably a splice enclosure. In theory they could put a node nearby. How many houses are near yours?

They may build out if the investment is worth it for them.
Good Luck!