Quote:
Originally Posted by
LonghornXP 
They may claim it but the law states that all wiring belongs to the customer or the apartment complex owners. If they a locked box they must provide a way to allow Verizon to disconnect it or they must disconnect it when the customer cancels service and they must also do it within the next business. This means that most cable companies allow the cable to be disconnected from their boxes because they don't want to send a truck roll everytime a customer disconnects.
Again they may claim it but you never hear about them winning or bringing this into court. The reason why is because they can win but they will endup losing like I said. If they brought it to court they would again be forced to disconnect the customers coax cables from their boxes via a truck roll.
Longhorn,
This may not be as cut and dried as you are making it out to be. In our buildings case it certainly is not. I believe that the law you are referring to is the 1996 Telecommunications Act. This law basically provides a very comprehensive framework for either the individual condo owners, or the HOA as a whole, to purchase the "home wiring" and "home run wiring" from the incumbent service provider (i.e. cable company). If you take a close look at that document though, you will find that the provisions of the law can only be used when the incumbent provider no longer has a legally enforceable right to remain in the building.
In our case, the original contract that we signed with the cable company back in 1985 had wording to the effect that the cable company maintained complete ownership of "all" the wiring in the building, with no term specified. Because of this, they have a legally enforceable right (i.e. a signed contract) to operate, and also to preclude anyone from even thinking about using any of their wiring.
We had an MDU installer put in a DirecTv distribution system that made use of the cable comapnies "home run wiring" thinking that we were free to do this based specifically on our reading of the 1996 law. In the midst of trying to get them to open up their box so that we could hook the home runs up to the DirecTv system, their regional vice president shows up with lawyer in tow and says that if he sees or hears of anyone touching the wiring he is calling the police immediately, and shows us the contract to boot. Their position is that they own the wiring, and for us to challenge that it is incumbent upon us to take legal action. Remember, there is no access to the end of the home run wires as they are in the cableco box, which at a minimum has to be opened up to alow the wire to be connected to the DirecTv system.
One of the key points being that "we" are the ones that have to "take it to court" and not them. We are tring to get a contract invalidated, which in California requires Superior Court action. So, $17,000 in legal fees later there is still no provider in the building other than the cable company. Running all new home run wiring to the 50 units could have been done for about $12,000, in parallel to the cable wiring. We just found this out a few weeks ago.
Just want to make sure that no one reading this starts down the same path that we did only to end up getting spanked. Being in the right is one thing, proving it in court against someone with deep pockets is an entirely different matter.
If there are any lawyers perusing the thread who would care to help out a building full of people dying for an alternative to expensive cable television, please respond or PM me on this. This has been dragging on for 4 years and has caused an unbelievable amount of frustration and anger for all invloved.
Robert
P.S. To get somewhat back on topic
I believe that the wiring that Verizon uses in the building will be their regular telephone wiring. Delivering the FiOS service over th eoriginal copper for the last hundred feet or so. I don't believe they would attempt to use the cable companies wiring. Someone please correct me if I am wrong.
