Fergie's Tech Blog

Verizon: Fiber-Optic Web Lines, High-Tech Headaches

Rosalind S. Helderman writes in The Washington Post:

Amanda and Richard Di Donna never asked for Verizon high-speed Internet service at their Vienna home.

Even so, in March a crew working under contract for the company showed up in their back yard, digging along a public easement to lay fiber-optic cable that the company promised would bring lightning-quick computer connections to their neighborhood.

But the crew hit a problem -- literally. Workers dug into an apparently mis-marked power line running into their home, the Di Donnas were told later. The contact caused a massive power surge that shot through the house, shorting out every electrical appliance and melting almost all the wires snaking through their walls.

What followed was an ordeal to get their house and lives back in order that has not ended, the couple said. They spent more than four months in hotels and apartments with their 2-year-old son while repairs were underway. Their dog had to stay at a kennel. Amanda Di Donna spent the final months of her second pregnancy uprooted and gave birth about seven weeks before the couple finally moved back into their gutted and rebuilt house last month.

By their records, they still are owed almost $14,000 in repair costs and expenses by UtiliQuest, the company that mis-marked the electrical line and whose insurance company, they said, has paid more than $90,000 to repair damage related to the incident.

posted by Fergie @ 9/19/2005 06:05:00 AM