Fergie's Tech Blog

Phone vs. Cable: Turf Wars Escalate

Ken Belson and Vikas Bijaj write in The News York Times:

Bees swarmed around Dennis Pappas as he pried open the door to a telephone equipment box belonging to Qwest Communications at an apartment building here recently. Inside, the insects had built a small but seemingly busy hive.

The bees called the box home because workers from Cox Communications, a local cable provider, did not properly plug a hole in it when they switched customers in the building over to Cox’s phone service, said Mr. Pappas, a public policy chief at Qwest, the local phone company. As a result, Qwest had to bring in a contractor to undertake the risky task of removing the hive.

It may sound like a small thing, but Qwest says the infested box is just one of many pieces of equipment that Cox has damaged or misused. It says Cox has left wires exposed and improperly grounded cables, hazards that could disrupt phone service or hurt customers and workers. Qwest even argues that the damage is part of a plan to make it harder to sign up customers it lost to Cox.

Technicians who came to Qwest from Cox said “that their instructions were to make it as tough for Qwest to win back the customer as possible,” Mr. Pappas said.

posted by Fergie @ 11/24/2006 02:38:00 PM