The big dig: Hundreds of miles of cable digging coming
Jan. 31. By Dave Vieser. Charter Communications, owner of Spectrum, will be installing 130 miles of underground cable in Cornelius during 2022. When the installation is complete, Spectrum will be able to serve more than 8,400 homes and small businesses in the town.
Town officials are hopeful the expansion will go smoother than their recent cable work in the Westmoreland Road area.
“Thats been a struggle,” said Assistant Town Manager Tyler Beardsley. “They really didn’t do a good job, hitting a lot of water lines and telecom services. However, we recently met with them and emphasized that they must do better.”
Spectrum pledges to do better
Spectrum spokesman Pat Paterno agreed, saying they encouraged the discussion at the town board meeting.
“Spectrum is planning to reach out to Cornelius residents in a number of different ways to keep them informed about our plans, including door tags, and email communications,” Paterno said.
Town commissioners also urged Spectrum to keep in touch with area HOA and community organizations so they too can keep residents informed.
Cable lines are usually installed by independent contractors who are hired by companies like Spectrum and TDS. Some problems have surfaced in the past due to improperly marked underground lines as well as language barriers with installers, according to town officials.
Cable/communication services in Cornelius
The 130 mile project is one of, if not, the largest in recent history according to Town Manager Andrew Grant.
Cornelius is primarily served by Spectrum, as well as TDS Communication (formerly Mi-Connection), and AT&T uverse.
However, not all sections of the town are currently served by Spectrum and with hundreds of new residential approved, the company is obviously preparing for future business.
Specifics hard to pin down
”We continually look for opportunities to extend our services to additional homes and businesses but for competitive reasons, we don’t have information to share regarding specific subscriber locations,” Paterno said.
Suffice it to say, when the 130-mile installation is complete, portions of the town which don’t have access to Spectrum will be able to connect. New lines have also been installed in portions of the town by both TDS and AT&T but not to the extent of Spectrum’s planned expansion. Residents and businesses can also access TV and communication needs via satellite providers such as Direct TV.
Municipalities have limited control
The announcement about Spectrum’s expansion plan raised a number of questions from the town board on what control local municipalities have over utilities such as Spectrum.
Town Manager Andrew Grant
The answer: Not much.
“All the utilities in the state have a statutory right to work in our right of way,” said Grant. “We don’t have the right to say ‘no,’ so what we are left with is to urge cooperation and communication which is what we are doing.”
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Will Spectrum lay cable in Waterford Point subdivision? I assume this cable is fiber optic? CGray
Question: Other than having access to junctions on personal property do they have the right to dig up the front yards of people or is there access limited to the tree lawn other than passage to the junctions. It seems in Westmoreland there have been different approaches, so do they have access Carte Blanche where ever they chose or not?
Before Covid we had AT&T in our neighborhood installing cable lines. It was nearly a disaster.
The crew with language barriers could not communicate with me and had no way to call a supervisor.
The problem was that they were pulling the underground lines with a pickup truck and the connection snapped. My wife was near the mailbox and it nearly KILLED her.
The crew would not stop working and the customer service for AT&T said they would send out a supervisor. They did: 3 Days Later!
Who do we call in such a situation? I would hate to see anyone get injured during the new cable work.
Use Streaming, it’s a lot easier and cheaper.
Spectrum came thru Edinburgh Square before Thanksgiving. It was a nightmare. I got up one morning to a crew sitting on my patio with drink cans and muddy shovels everywhere. A jacket was thrown over my prized Japanese maple. No one spoke much English.They told me they were “working”, but couldn’t communicate much else. I called the city, was told there wasn’t much that could be done since Spectrum is a public utility. But if they were trespassing, I would have to call police. Reluctantly I did, considering this an unfortunate use of police resources. Little was resolved, as anticipated. Nearly 3 months later my back and side yards are still a muddy mess and piles of red mud remain throughout the neighborhood. Spectrum has damaged several areas throughout Cornelius, with the city being minimally responsive to complaints. It’s interesting now to hear the city saying that they are ‘urging cooperation and communication’ with Spectrum. Is there any other option? My property has been destroyed with little concern for MY needs. I’d say Spectrum owes the community at this point.
“Use Streaming, it’s a lot easier and cheaper.”
In order to stream content you HAVE to have a high speed connection to the internet.
SPECTRUM is “supposedly” upgrading current cable to higher speed connectivity, AND making themselves available to residents in Cornelius. In the past years SPECTRUM, once Time Warner Cable, were not available IN Cornelius.
While I have no problem using streaming services, I would like to see the current contractors do a better job and show respect for the homeowners yards/property.
I use TDS for my high speed internet, not their cable.
You can then use YouTube tv for any streaming service.
Spectrum couldn’t care less about the damage done by their ‘contractors.’ Spectrum is a huge conglomerate and has a partnership with the City of Charlotte and Meck County (i.e the uptown arena). You couldn’t find a Spectrum rep in Westmoreland for the past four months and you can’t find one now. The neighborhood looks awful. Dirt, cones, flags, spray paint, conduit everywhere, trash, etc. Best thing to do is not buy Spectrum, ever.
They cut our water line and our irrigation line. We had to stand over them to make sure they didn’t touch our lawn side of property. They kept trying. Still cut the water lines anyways. No one spoke English. NOT one legal vehicle on the street, every one of them had 30 day temp tags from out of state on vehicles that looked like they were pulled from the junkyard! And these are the guys that claim that they now repaired my water line???? They definitely aren’t plumbers. We had to call Cornelius PD twice due to damaged property and trespassing. No one wants to be liable. City blames Spectrum. Spectrum has no idea what damage “their subcontractors subcontractors have done” We will be chasing the damage done to my home for forever now. And no one cares. All of my neighbors AT&T internet lines were cut and of course AT&T will charge you for coming out to repair. The workers didn’t even know who they were working for when we asked and they were working on our property past 9:30pm. I have pictures of it all. It’s been an absolute nightmare.