Couple bought home in Seattle, then learned Comcast Internet would cost $27,000

erktrek

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Would Starlink help in this situation?
The article discusses the possibility of Starlink at their address.

Yeah I missed it, thanks. I wonder if they could mount some sort of extended pole ham radio style on their roof to clear some of the trees? Would still be cheaper than Comcast.
 
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26 (26 / 0)
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It seems like the issue is straight forward. It's not Comcast's fault that they would need to do underground work, tear up the road, and then restore the road to serve one customer. They won't ever see any return on the costs of that. Something that might help is asking the city to run overhead poles to his house and then Comcast can use that and it would probably greatly reduce the cost, but I'd doubt they'd do it for the same reason Comcast won't take up an 80,000 dollar project so one couple can get high-speed.

It's very unlikely they need to tear up the road. We were once on a well and switched to city water; the city line was on the other side of a road, and then had to run underneath our circular drive, twice, before reaching the house. No pavement was touched; they used a directional drilling rig to run the line, even though it had to be several feet underground for frost protection in this part of the country. Cable has no such requirement, so it would likely be even easier.

Isn't part of the issue the underground power lines that already exist? I would assume code would have them grouped together, but departing high and low voltage lines. I'd doubt you could do the directional drilling with the existence of high voltage lines already existing there. But maybe.
And my experience with sewer hookup when I was a little different when I was house shopping. There was a house that needed a sew hookup to pass code, and there was a sewer line to the street, but the cost to get the municipality to do the work was like 10k if they would even do it. Which they didn't and the house was uninhabitable.
Maybe Comcast if blowing smoke, but I'd believe the cost estimate, if not overinflated because I don't think I've ever seen a construction project under budget.
 
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-4 (4 / -8)

erktrek

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It was only after closing on the house in July 2019 that they learned the bad news.

and then...

Cohn told us the sellers disclosed in documents before the sale that Internet wasn't connected at the home

Which is it?

My take is they knew there was no internet but it was not disclosed as to what the issue was. Only later did they find that part out..
 
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69 (69 / 0)
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We had enough clues in the article, that I think I found their house (Northgate neighborhood, triangle block, six house, ½ mile from the Kracken Community Iceplex).

It’s a modest sized home, and there’s no indication that there is anything special about the address. However, it is two blocks on one side away from T-Mobile high speed 5G service, four blocks on an other side, four blocks on a third side, and ten blocks on the fourth side. They are in a 5G dead zone that’s about ½ square mile in size. You can see the high speed 5G coverage going down commercial IH 5 and Lake City Way, leaving a gap of no towers residential in the middle.

I too have my house smack in the middle of such a dead zone. I’m also 1½ blocks where FIOS ends and competes against the cable company because I sit 1½ blocks from the municipal border. That town got FIOS. We didn’t. Even worse, that town also has excellent T-Mobile coverage. They have three ISPs, and I have one, and I literally pay twice as much as my neighbors. I guess I’m lucky I didn’t have to pay $27,000 to be wired up.
 
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62 (63 / -1)

Martin123

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You guys don't understand anything... The reason why it's so expensive is clearly that Comcast is committed to the highest possible streaming quality, so are using audiophile-grade cables that cost $150 per foot. The whole digging thing is actually thrown in for free, so why are these people complaining??
 
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9 (26 / -17)
It was only after closing on the house in July 2019 that they learned the bad news.

and then...

Cohn told us the sellers disclosed in documents before the sale that Internet wasn't connected at the home

Which is it?

Likely they didn't read the disclosure form at closing. My closing docs are over 50 pages long and one page is a form with disclosures on it.
 
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4 (10 / -6)

SixDegrees

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It was only after closing on the house in July 2019 that they learned the bad news.

and then...

Cohn told us the sellers disclosed in documents before the sale that Internet wasn't connected at the home

Which is it?

Why not both? It's pretty common for buyers to wave off the details in the paperwork. I can easily imagine the information being there, and being ignored.

My state has mandatory fault disclosure laws for home sales that would probably have pushed this defect up in the buyer's face, but I don't know how that works in Washington.
 
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15 (17 / -2)

Raptor

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It was only after closing on the house in July 2019 that they learned the bad news.

and then...

Cohn told us the sellers disclosed in documents before the sale that Internet wasn't connected at the home

Which is it?

Could be both. Depending on how they interpreted "wasn't connected".

Presumably they took that to mean "available but not hooked up" rather than, "Completely unavailable at this location".

Probably a combination of the sellers being less than entirely forthcoming, and the buyers not pressing hard enough for an unambiguous answer on that one.
 
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36 (37 / -1)

SixDegrees

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It seems like the issue is straight forward. It's not Comcast's fault that they would need to do underground work, tear up the road, and then restore the road to serve one customer. They won't ever see any return on the costs of that. Something that might help is asking the city to run overhead poles to his house and then Comcast can use that and it would probably greatly reduce the cost, but I'd doubt they'd do it for the same reason Comcast won't take up an 80,000 dollar project so one couple can get high-speed.

It's very unlikely they need to tear up the road. We were once on a well and switched to city water; the city line was on the other side of a road, and then had to run underneath our circular drive, twice, before reaching the house. No pavement was touched; they used a directional drilling rig to run the line, even though it had to be several feet underground for frost protection in this part of the country. Cable has no such requirement, so it would likely be even easier.

Isn't part of the issue the underground power lines that already exist? I would assume code would have them grouped together, but departing high and low voltage lines. I'd doubt you could do the directional drilling with the existence of high voltage lines already existing there. But maybe.
And my experience with sewer hookup when I was a little different when I was house shopping. There was a house that needed a sew hookup to pass code, and there was a sewer line to the street, but the cost to get the municipality to do the work was like 10k if they would even do it. Which they didn't and the house was uninhabitable.
Maybe Comcast if blowing smoke, but I'd believe the cost estimate, if not overinflated because I don't think I've ever seen a construction project under budget.

Maybe. But the issue is almost certainly NOT having to tear up the road.
 
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8 (9 / -1)
I appreciate a good Comcast bashing story. But this one is a little hard for me to get behind. Quick search of Zillow for houses recently sold in that area of Seattle show most way north of $800,000. And Northgate would be a location I would consider moving to if I was working for a certain employer based out of Redmond.

Now that is probably irresponsible conjecture on my part - even people making $500k per year may not have thirty grand laying around to sink into Comcast’s pocket.

But this couple probably had much more mobility and choice in where they could live than many many other people in Seattle, where affordable housing is harder to find. And the fact that the government was willing to step in on their behalf is a little ‘icky’.

That said, I consider high speed Internet a basic necessity- even for rich people. So I hope this couple finds a happy ending.

Being well-off doesn't make getting fucked over by your ISP acceptable, and there's nothing icky about taking your problems to the government whose job it is to protect you.
 
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64 (71 / -7)
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It was only after closing on the house in July 2019 that they learned the bad news.

and then...

Cohn told us the sellers disclosed in documents before the sale that Internet wasn't connected at the home

Which is it?

Likely they didn't read the disclosure form at closing. My closing docs are over 50 pages long and one page is a form with disclosures on it.

That's their fault, then. Our closings could have gone quicker, but I wasn't going to let myself miss anything out of desire to get out of there quicker.
 
Upvote
7 (14 / -7)
There are alternatives. We had a similar problem in rural Virginia where the closest TV cable was miles from our house. Verizon Unlimited was the best option, and because we had cell signal issues with one or two bars neighbors got together and paid for a Verizon mini tower (under $3,000) that got us all 5 bar cell coverage. Except for the one or two bandwidth intensive online games, not having cable for internet was a nonissue.
 
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18 (18 / 0)
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SixDegrees

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Isn't DSL a thing in the US? Presumably these house do at least have landlines? It wouldn't give you amazing speeds, but certainly better than 15Mbps downstream (and more reliably too)...

Yeah, it's a thing.

I wonder if there aren't alternative cable providers in the area as well.
 
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-17 (3 / -20)

Raptor

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Isn't DSL a thing in the US? Presumably these house do at least have landlines? It wouldn't give you amazing speeds, but certainly better than 15Mbps downstream (and more reliably too)...

Not really anymore. Copper lines have been allowed to degrade/removed fairly aggressively over the last 20 years or so across much of the US.

And that's assuming the location was even close enough to be hooked up for DSL in the first place.
 
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40 (42 / -2)

TwoCansAndAString

Smack-Fu Master, in training
2
I wonder why we never see these sorts of articles about people getting electricity or water at their houses, even in remote rural areas. Maybe the government should look into what happened there and figure out how to fix these crazy internet stories.

/S (in case you can't feel my eyes rolling through your screen)

Back in the day a lot of people had to pay for utilities such as electricity to be brought to their property.
 
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6 (13 / -7)
It was only after closing on the house in July 2019 that they learned the bad news.

and then...

Cohn told us the sellers disclosed in documents before the sale that Internet wasn't connected at the home

Which is it?

Likely they didn't read the disclosure form at closing. My closing docs are over 50 pages long and one page is a form with disclosures on it.

That would also be a strike against the buyer's. I had a lot of closing docs, I read every damn one of those trying my realtor's patience.

I even did checks on property taxes owed by previous owner, what internet services were offered at the location, what public utilities I'd have to use, etc. And that's for a five year old house in a 10 year old large development. During my first walkthrough of the house, before I put an offer on it, I looked at their internet connections, water heater, outside HVAC unit, shingles, siding, fence, etc. Despite looking at all that, the HVAC unit could've failed the day after I signed the paperwork. A storm could of taken off siding, shingles, wiped out the fence.
 
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14 (21 / -7)

Danathar

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How far away are their neighbours? Why can't they share wifi?

Why is this all about massive underground construction when you could just run a CAT6 wire from an adjacent house and bury it 1ft underground if you think it's unsightly?

You can't just bury cable. You'd have to run conduit or something. Wifi sharing? Yea, thats far easier with directional antennas. I'd go that route. You could do that for FAR less than $27K
 
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3 (9 / -6)

autostop

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Isn't DSL a thing in the US? Presumably these house do at least have landlines? It wouldn't give you amazing speeds, but certainly better than 15Mbps downstream (and more reliably too)...

The article mentioned it. Says only 3Mbps DSL was available.

Advancements in DSL tech tend to bring higher and higher speeds only on shorter and shorter runs. The distance between premises and cabinets in the US tend to be very long compared to most of the world, so this is not unusual. Many DSLAMs in outer suburbs and rural areas simply aren't upgraded because the Phone Companies know that only a few subscribers within the area would be able to benefit.
 
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36 (36 / 0)

SixDegrees

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It was only after closing on the house in July 2019 that they learned the bad news.

and then...

Cohn told us the sellers disclosed in documents before the sale that Internet wasn't connected at the home

Which is it?

Likely they didn't read the disclosure form at closing. My closing docs are over 50 pages long and one page is a form with disclosures on it.

That's their fault, then. Our closings could have gone quicker, but I wasn't going to let myself miss anything out of desire to get out of there quicker.

The buyers definitely have blame to shoulder here. Although not yet required by law, Internet connectivity is more necessity than luxury for many people these days, and it's something I would explicitly ask about if I were buying a house; I wouldn't just assume it was available. And it sounds, from the discussion above, as though the buyers received written notice before the sale that Internet was not available. So shame on them.
 
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24 (28 / -4)

dignan915

Smack-Fu Master, in training
94
ATT rolled out fiber in our neighborhood in the past few months. I keep seeing the guy putting flyers at the homes. I also have had a Comcast sales person come to my house a couple times. I refuse to give either of these companies my money.

We used our phones for a long time until T-Mobile came out with their 5G home internet. There's a tower in our neighborhood, so I knew that the connection would work out well. Sure enough, I usually average 250 down, 15 up.

You know the best part about T-Mobile home internet? I pay one price with taxes included and no fuddle duddy business by adding "interwebs surcharge fee".
 
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-7 (9 / -16)

Danathar

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Pay for your neighbor 's internet if they let you run an Ethernet cable to your house?

Or simply pay for another modem on the same cable drop, and pay the neighbors $10 a month to host it.

You can do that (have two modems in the same dwelling on the same cable drop?)? I didn't know that was something you can get.
 
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12 (12 / 0)

M3000P

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Pay for your neighbor 's internet if they let you run an Ethernet cable to your house?

Or simply pay for another modem on the same cable drop, and pay the neighbors $10 a month to host it.

You can do that (have two modems in the same dwelling on the same cable drop?)? I didn't know that was something you can get.

We have two drops to our house. One is 'mine' the other was put in by my wife's company for her WFH office.
 
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15 (15 / 0)
It's understandable that in the 80's/90's who cared if cable TV got wired in to every house if the homeowner didn't want it at the time. Except now it leaves a situation like this, with no incentive for Comcast to connect them.

They mention sharing 6 lot lines of some type with neighbors. Even if the one they used to run a cable to isn't interested anymore, perhaps one of the others that has line-of-sight would be interested in free internet forever if they let you hook up a pair of unifi point-to-point wireless and a good router that can isolate the two networks. If you're worried about your neighbor snooping all your traffic then congrats, you found an actual use for a VPN service.

Or maybe if one of the neighbors is very close to the pedestal, they could get comcast to run an entirely separate line to that person's house, so the two services could be totally independent, even?
 
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10 (11 / -1)
When Zachary Cohn and his wife bought a house in the Northgate neighborhood of Seattle, Washington, they didn't expect any trouble getting home Internet service.

What's not clear from my reading is whether Comcast told them service was available at that address before they bought the house. Buying a house without checking if service is available at that address is like buying a house without checking if it has city water or a well, i.e., moronic.

It's probably already been addressed somewhere in the comments, but if you think that Comcast's address locator system is accurate, think again. In fact, almost every ISP's locator system sucks - Verizon, Comcast, Mediacom, AT&T, all of them. I've been in places where the lookup says you're good. A call to an order specialist says "You're good." Then 24 hours before the scheduled truck roll you get a message saying they can't complete the request because they don't service your area. It's happened to many people and will continue to happen.
 
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44 (44 / 0)

crmarvin42

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Whenever we looked at a home, the first thing I'd look for in the basement is a Verizon logo (only fiber in the area). If not, I'd make it a point of checking Verizon's availability map for the the house when I got home.

I passed on several REALLY nice houses when we were looking last year because they were out in the country and didn't have fiber to the home. Some had cable (Comcast, or a smaller local player), but was fiber or no bid for me. I work from home, and have 4 kids that were all doing remote learning at one point.
 
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12 (12 / 0)
There's something missing in this story and it's the age of the house.

Given Comcast ran cable on poles in the 70s and 80s tells me the neighborhood was wired up entirely at this time. As technology switched to fiber, the coaxial lines were removed (along with the poles, it seems), and the residents continued receiving service.

Except this house.

This indicates to me the house was built after the cable was replaced. The story talks about internet, but doesn't mention coaxial other than a possible option offering slower speeds.

With this information, it seems the new homeowners are stuck in a position in order to run a line to the home, and I can't see Comcast being the villain here given they had already provided upgrades to the area.

During home construction, it's up to the builder to reach out to services in the area in order to provide hookup, including gas, electric, water, and now internet service.

The homeowners do have several options, but regardless which they choose, each will require a cost to them to pay since the service is now considered a new line.

It doesn't matter "how close" other lines are, as it typically doesn't work this way. As the article stated, the former owner ran an obviously illegal tap to get internet from their neighbor, clearly upset over the situation (and likely hopes this doesn't have Comcast knocking on their door thanks to the publicity of this situation).

Comcast gets some very well deserved knocks for its antics, but not in this case, which sucks for the new homeowners.

Of course, Comcast could just take a small drop of the bucket of their billions in profit and do something nice here to help them.... lol... damn near had the line out, but lost it.

Let's just hope Comcast does the right thing here. It would be a tiny step toward reversing their current reputation, which has no monetary value.
 
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-16 (15 / -31)
When Zachary Cohn and his wife bought a house in the Northgate neighborhood of Seattle, Washington, they didn't expect any trouble getting home Internet service.

What's not clear from my reading is whether Comcast told them service was available at that address before they bought the house. Buying a house without checking if service is available at that address is like buying a house without checking if it has city water or a well, i.e., moronic.

It's probably already been addressed somewhere in the comments, but if you think that Comcast's address locator system is accurate, think again. In fact, almost every ISP's locator system sucks - Verizon, Comcast, Mediacom, AT&T, all of them. I've been in places where the lookup says you're good. A call to an order specialist says "You're good." Then 24 hours before the scheduled truck roll you get a message saying they can't complete the request because they don't service your area. It's happened to many people and will continue to happen.

Yeah, that's my point. I just don't want to mistakenly regard these folks as abused people who are also idiots.
 
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-6 (2 / -8)
When I was purchasing a home, I checked that the house could get FTTH before I even made an offer. Sounds like they didn't do their due diligence before the purchase.

It literally says that in the article, house's all around had it, middle of Seattle, light rail near by, schools 90 second walk away etc not some small rural town etc he assumed, as many probably would.
 
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1 (13 / -12)