Yikes - XFinity has to bury new cable line to my house
 

So XFinity came out today since I could not get the modem to connect. After doing troubleshooting, the technician determined the main line from their cable box located in my neighbors yard to my house has gone bad and needs to be replaced and buried underground. This sounds super scary to me. Do they essentially dig up my yard? What about the fact that the line needs to go across my driveway as the house connection is on the opposite side from their cable box? I hope they can go underneath my driveway without destroying it. Has anyone experienced this - the burying of a cable line? What about replacing a line where a buried line existed before? Appreciate any knowledge or help.

Thanks,

Cindy

They can tunnel under your driveway with no problem. They may need to dig a short trench (about 3 to 4 feet long) and place some sod, which will eventually blend into your grass. Not a big problem.

I hade it done up north before we left. Essentially, when they come into a community (like for a new fiber company) they run the infrastructure down the street along the side walk to the box you see (like a water or sprinkler control box) and often times they will not run the service to the house until you become a subscriber. In my case they offered two options, they drill it under the ground or in my case they simply took a shovel and cut a slot into the grass about the depth of a shovel and tucked the cable in under the slice of grass. The latter was done because I had sprinkler lines in the yard. I had to water the disturbed area for a few weeks with garden hose because the grass got shocked and was a little brown for a while. Not sure how they do it down here but is suspect the same. As far as your drive way they most likely would go under not disturbing the concrete. They have been doing this for a while so you should not have major concerns.

Xfinity
 

Not an issue. They do it all the time.

They laid mine into a narrow channel cut into the grass - around 6" down to avoid hitting the irrigation pipe. I had hoped they would run it round the roof but they didn't have the U-pins that would have fastened it to the woodwork. Now when I'm digging out back (I no longer have any grass) I have to be careful not to slice the cable. Luckily they did not need to run it under the driveway.

They’ve been doing this a long time. Don’t worry.

They may go the long way around your house and just tuck it into a slit

Make sure they bury it deep enough or your landscaper might cut it. And make sure they don't cut other lines when digging the trench.

Xfinity simply lays the cable on the ground using the shortest run possible. They then hire a subcontractor to “bury” the cable. The sub simply cut a slit in the grass and tucked the cable into the slit and stomped it down with their feet. Where the cable ran through our landscaping, they just rolled a few of the landscaping rocks over the cable. Where the cable had to cross the edging barrier between the landscaping and lawn, they left it exposed going over the edging, where it would have gotten hit by our lawn company while weed whacking along the edging. It was the absolute laziest, minimum effort, job I have ever witnessed. I had to pull up our edging, run the cable underneath it, and carefully reinstall the edging. I then had to buy several bags of landscape rocks to actually cover the cable in our garden areas. I also had to buy some concrete anchors and cable sleeves to attach and protect the cable where it ran up the side of the house.

You actually accepted that shoddy work? I cannot fathom the cable was run over the metal edge to your flower beds. Just NO!

You don't say what Village you are in, but is Quantum fiber or another provider an option? It might already be at your house and they just need to connect it.

On Linden Isle so no Quantum Fiber available :(

I imagine xfinity contracts out burning cable like others with usually do poor job?, just be glad you don’t live on corner lot, they tore up my irrigation couple time running neighbors cables so bad I had to re run irrigation main up close to my Villa wall.

If the existing cable is already underground may be in conduit. All they need to do is feed the new cable through the conduit. That’s what they do here in south Florida.

Good grief…did you ask the technician about that??? This is not the forum to give you correct info. That said, they’ll almost certainly not tear up you concrete or disturb your landscaping much.