Telus → [AB] Phone line lying on the ground and damaged frequently

My sister lives in a rural area. The road she lives on is about 3 km long and has three houses on it. The phone line is lying on the ground along the side of the road (I can see it) for at least half of the three kilometers. Unfortunately this means her neighbour damages it frequently when he drives over it with heavy equipment. She does have a cell phone, but it's all but unusable in her house.

Would Telus consider either burying or hanging the cable? If so, how could she/I convince them to do this for such a small number of customers? In case it's relevant, the line is on the side of the road opposite the power poles.

Thanks,
Mango

Did she report it to the Telus 'line down' number/chat/twitter.

Was it a temporary patch or a work order that got lost.

Yes, she reports it every time. It takes about a week to get fixed. Then it is fine until the neighbour drives over it again. This happens several times a year.

Of this is a land location address...
Are the neighbours on her property?
Is it a private road?
If that's the case... she would be responsible for trenching or poles

Thanks for replying.

No, the line runs across the neighbour's property.

It is a public road.

Right of way?

Not sure, how do I find out?

If the cable goes over your neighbours property then it becomes difficult unless there is a legal right of way on the property as well...
Hard to say what's going on... rural AB is a mess due to the property sizes etc. (quarter sections +)
If it's a public road, then it's not entirely on the neighbours property... is it?
Or is that where it crosses?

Actually the cable is parallel to the road. The neighbour's driveways are perpendicular to the road, so whenever he turns from the road into a driveway, he drives across it.

It looks like the cable is buried under the "main" driveway, but is just sitting out in the open on some of the others.

Aren't phone lines supposed to be either buried or else on poles, not just laying on the ground?

(What happens in the winter BTW?)

Could she offer to this fellow that she will bury the cable herself under these driveways? How many driveways are there?

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TELUS tariffs and government rules may cover some of this. In terms of government regulators, I am not familiar enough with Canada to know if this is a matter for the Alberta Utilities Commission or for the CRTC.

From TELUS tariff:»about.telus.com/servlet/ ··· m406.pdf

They can probably bury the line, or put it in a trench, or elevate it. But I don't think they can just lay the damn thing on the ground.

I genuinely hope it never gets cut in the winter. We get a massive amount of snow here, and finding the cable would be near-impossible - let alone the cut.Looks to be a little under a kilometer. If it was still exposed for the rest of the distance, it would "probably" be fine. But it would not be a small/cheap job.

Put it all in writing to the CRTC here:
»crtc.gc.ca/rapidsccm/reg ··· p?lang=e

Tell them everything, such as:
Telus is aware of it for X-months or years,
how often you called them,
how the cable feeding everyone is just lying on the ground, gets damaged, affects service and perhaps 911 and Telus just doesn't care enough to fix the issue.
Ask the CRTC who will be responsible for 911 service should it be required and the cable damaged.
Ask if this is safe for kids to touch and play with while standing in a puddle of water on the side of the road.

and so on...

I just finished a similar thing due to a cable being in my fricking pool of all places. Takes the CRTC 10-days to get the ball rolling. My fix was about 12 days after complaint. Which was faster than bitching at the telco.

It's obviously going no-where with Telus, and they don't seem to give a damn, and no one in the forum will be able to help you. The only ones who can make Telus do something is the CRTC.

Do or don't.

Oh believe me, I've had a lot of calls over the years where these lines get cut when a snow plow goes by and plows into the ditch a bit. It's never fun for the techs trying to find the line in the snow/cold.How rural is where you live in Alberta? 911 isn't available in all rural areas / towns / counties. Many areas are remote enough that it can take a very long time for emergency crews to arrive. Also no parent in their right mind lets their kids play in a ditch. If they didn't bother being parents enough to teach their kids never to touch downed lines, there's a serious problem.

The cables in the ditch or strung along fences are very common in rural Alberta and is nothing new. The CRTC knows of this practice and has for years. Normally the lines are placed far enough from the road they shouldn't be a problem and are buried under the driveways.To elevate, it would heavily depend if Telus is able to share the poles owned by Epcor/Enmax/Fortis/etc along the rural roads. If they can't share, Telus would have to install their own poles. That would be extremely expensive, not likely, and would take years. Trenching? Considering how short the season is and how insane the demand is, that'll be years also and along rural roads still unlikely. Also some of the areas are too boggy to support trenching and are harder to put poles in.

Any trenching or poles to be installed on the customer's property is their responsibility to install at their own cost.

Thanks for the interesting info!

Would you agree that Telus at least should bury the cable under the neighbour's driveways, especially considering that they have been severed multiple times already?

Long term would seem to be more economical to bury under a few driveways one time, rather than to repeatedly send out repair crews.

That sounds like Telus. I know someone who's line was in the ditch for years before it was finally properly repaired. Their phone was out of order so often they got a discount.

For the record - the cable is not in a ditch. It's sitting on flat, level ground. If it were in a ditch or on a fence, I doubt it would be near as much of a problem.

Thanks to everyone who responded so far!