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

This seems like a lack of due diligence on behalf of the real estate agent and the home buyer. The last two homes I bought, I made sure I knew exactly what my internet options would be and even pre-qualified the service before finalizing the sale. I'd suggest anyone who views internet as important to their job or entertainment to include that as part of the home buying process.
 
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Smithy6482

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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..

The disclosure language certainly smells but if I saw a home disclosure in 2019 saying "No internet connection...," that'd be a huge red flag. I've bought two houses in the last few years (moved states) and both times called Comcast to start the service install process before I signed the papers. Comcast's position here no doubt sucks but this is partially on the home buyers.
 
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SixDegrees

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This seems like a lack of due diligence on behalf of the real estate agent and the home buyer. The last two homes I bought, I made sure I knew exactly what my internet options would be and even pre-qualified the service before finalizing the sale. I'd suggest anyone who views internet as important to their job or entertainment to include that as part of the home buying process.

Noted upthread, the seller's paperwork disclosed that there was no Internet available.
 
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tricro

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ISP's SOP, based on anecdotal evidence, is to have the customer foot the bill of running fiber/lines to an underserved area, offer no service discount to that customer who paid for the line, and then profit by selling service to all the newly served area that line provided (according to the article this might not be possible in this instance). To add insult to injury, there have been at least 2 instances where the cost of installation via the ISP, admittedly direct buried fiber, was at least twice the cost of us running it ourselves.

I understand there are all sorts of things to consider (right of way, permitting, etc), but charging the first customer interested in service the entire/majority cost seems pretty short sighted. Much like the short sightedness in this particular instance. If done right, the conduit run to service this area (vs direct burial cable) will make it easier for upgrades and continue to provide a revenue stream for years to come. At the very least, they could write the "loss" of the improvement off from their balance sheet.
 
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DrewW

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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)

When I was growing up in Jupiter Farms, people could petition the Special Improvement District to have their roads paved or get city water, if your street was next on the plan. Most streets and 99% of people had water installed (septic fields for sewage #florida).

I know of multiple people who refused the city water with all those strings attached. One of those people had wells that went dry within a couple years and found out they couldn't get city water anymore. They drilled a ridiculously deep well - something you can't do to hit internet.

I could also tell you a yarn about a blueberry farmer in West Virginia who couldn't drill his well deep enough and couldn't get the state to help. So he converted his farm into new-fangled windmills and a fracking fluid holding tank, because the same entities refusing to help him get water would certainly build a road and power infrastructure to get his electricity.
 
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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.

It was in the documents, seller did not have internet (in 2022 near Seattle...red flags). I checked the outside of every house I looked at for FTTH. If I didn't see a box on the outside of the house, I wasn't buying.
 
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Smithy6482

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This seems like a lack of due diligence on behalf of the real estate agent and the home buyer. The last two homes I bought, I made sure I knew exactly what my internet options would be and even pre-qualified the service before finalizing the sale. I'd suggest anyone who views internet as important to their job or entertainment to include that as part of the home buying process.

Noted upthread, the seller's paperwork disclosed that there was no Internet available.

Not quite. The disclosure said internet wasn't connected, not that it couldn't be connected. Kinda scummy.
 
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This seems like a lack of due diligence on behalf of the real estate agent and the home buyer. The last two homes I bought, I made sure I knew exactly what my internet options would be and even pre-qualified the service before finalizing the sale. I'd suggest anyone who views internet as important to their job or entertainment to include that as part of the home buying process.

Noted upthread, the seller's paperwork disclosed that there was no Internet available.

Yeah as the buyer, if the paperwork says 'no internet' and you physically walk around the outside of the house and see no coax anywhere... why would you not at LEAST call Comcast? I get that the availability indication is often wrong but how does that not set off alarm bells for someone who works from home and relies on good internet.
 
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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.

We have two drops to our house. One is 'mine' the other was put in by my wife's company for her WFH office.

Hmm..IF you could get a wifi directional antenna where the other cable modem is that might be even better than offering to simply leech off of their network. I know I'd be more open to that than somebody actually being on my LAN or even a segmented portion of it.
 
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tricro

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This seems like a lack of due diligence on behalf of the real estate agent and the home buyer. The last two homes I bought, I made sure I knew exactly what my internet options would be and even pre-qualified the service before finalizing the sale. I'd suggest anyone who views internet as important to their job or entertainment to include that as part of the home buying process.

I cant seem to find the article, but I seem to remember there being a homeowner who did just that and ran into the same issue of a huge upfront buildout. The provider claimed it was an error in their maps/system. The 5 minutes I spent searching seem to indicate it might have been something I dreamt up though :/

edit: in this case it was disclosed, so your point is all the more valid
 
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Frosty Grin

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This seems like a lack of due diligence on behalf of the real estate agent and the home buyer. The last two homes I bought, I made sure I knew exactly what my internet options would be and even pre-qualified the service before finalizing the sale. I'd suggest anyone who views internet as important to their job or entertainment to include that as part of the home buying process.

Noted upthread, the seller's paperwork disclosed that there was no Internet available.

Not quite. The disclosure said internet wasn't connected, not that it couldn't be connected. Kinda scummy.
But it can be connected. For a price. :)
 
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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)

Thing is the reason we never get these stories about water or electricity isn't the reason that you imply - it's because any house that can get those services does get those services.

So if you are buying a house that doesn't have mains water, or mains sewage, or doesn't have gas, or doesn't have grid electricity you know about it from the get go. Not that those homes don't exist - they absolutely do.

The reason we get these stories isn't because of an unprecedented connectivity gap that broadband has that other services don't. The reason we get these stories is because there's an information gap - with home buyers not realising that broadband isn't available either because they relied on neighbours being connected or in some instances because they relied on incorrect data from the ISPs.
 
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Emerald53

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Spectrum is now adding coax to our neighborhood after several years of DSL and 25 Mbps at high prices. We were also working the city and providers to no available. Lines have been laid in a new section and are supposed to be extended to our section.

They will have bore under the street to get to my house. Their problem is navigating all of the utilities that run underground and the stone that was used in the fill when the neighborhood was developed. They have started in our section but seem to have stalled. We shall see if it makes it to our side of the street.
 
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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.


I would think they would do directional boring. It usually costs about $15 per foot for longer jobs. It would be much better than tearing up the road. I have had a lot of experience with installing fiber/cable for new businesses. Comcast is clearly up-charging for this cable run, as it should have run under $5k.

$5k doesn't even cover dealing with the city.

A bunch of people are like "dig a hole" like that's easy.

The house is served by underground electric, which is two strikes against it. They can't run on poles, and that means there's buried electric utilities to conflict with. The road they have to tunnel under probably has utilities running in parallel under it (water, sewer, electric, possibly gas, pots, etc.). You need to know where all of that is before you "dig a hole"
 
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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.

Everything is still on poles, except for the house in question, it's right in the article. They're the only house on the block with underground service due to location. The house probably never got cable back when the original company began running service because it would have been too expensive and the owner of the house was happy with the six channels he could get using the rabbit ears on his TV.
 
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snowcat-il

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Would Starlink help in this situation?


edit: apologies I see it was in fact addressed - missed that bit at the end of the article.

If I were them I would still give StarLink a go, still seems a 20' to 30' Antenna Mast would still be cheaper. I have Starlink at my Parents, once you clear the obstructions it pretty solid.
 
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SixDegrees

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This seems like a lack of due diligence on behalf of the real estate agent and the home buyer. The last two homes I bought, I made sure I knew exactly what my internet options would be and even pre-qualified the service before finalizing the sale. I'd suggest anyone who views internet as important to their job or entertainment to include that as part of the home buying process.

Noted upthread, the seller's paperwork disclosed that there was no Internet available.

Not quite. The disclosure said internet wasn't connected, not that it couldn't be connected. Kinda scummy.

No, this put the matter squarely in the buyer's court. If Internet access was important, they should have verified its availability prior to closing. Nothing scummy here at all; what was in the paperwork satisfies disclosure rules, and laws if there are any.
 
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Derecho Imminent

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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.

Seems clear to me. He said he didnt even check.
 
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Before we purchased our home in 2006, I asked the seller, their agent and actually called Att, Direct Tv and Comcast.

I was fortunate I had family in the neighborhood and asked their neighbors as well.

We have a Comcast easement and box in our yard that connects various neighbors.

Back when cable came out in the 80s cities required them to run lines to every property or at least I thought they did.

A few years back, our church wanted to switch from dsl to faster internet. Fortunately Comcast has a business customer on the same side of the street and there are utility poles so they extended the line so we could get service and didn't charge maybe because no digging or permits were needed.
 
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FoxyBoi

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It’s gotten to the point where if I move, I will preinstall internet service before signing. Hard to trust availability websites, disclosures, etc.

Word. I suppose on the day of the inspection, or heck, final walkthrough before heading off to the attorney to sign the papers, have an internet technician show up to route up a line in your name. You'll know real quick what the situation is before doing the final signatures.
 
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numerobis

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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.

Well, no on ever expects the Spanish Inquisition, either.

But: $27k for a <200 foot run? That's absurd. I would press for a detailed accounting, and offer to run the trench myself. For comparison, a drain replacement on my property required excavating, removing, and replacing a 110 foot drain line, plus interconnects to the municipal sewer and to my house, and that cost under $4k - which I also thought was excessive, but several bids came in right around that same amount. And cable runs don't have to be 4 feet deep, like drain lines here in the north; the final run from pole to my house for Comcast is barely covered with dirt, thanks to loads of tree roots that make trenching a chore, and it's been fine that way for well over 10 years.

All that said: these days, I would explicitly ask if Internet connectivity was available before buying a house. It might even be considered a known defect if it wasn't, and the sellers would be on the hook (again, in my state) to disclose it or pay for remediation.

So, Comcast absolutely sucks here and ought to be the first against the wall when the revolution comes. But caveat emptor is still sound advice.
My local estimate is $CAD 5k for replacing the sewer line, pretty much what you got. That’s just what it costs to dig up a bunch of space including the city street.

To cross an arterial they need to block traffic on an arterial. That’s not cheap; I believe comcast when they say $80k. If it was a local road it would be cheaper.
 
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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’d be depending upon your utility provided by your neighbor. Imagine getting your power or gas depending upon the neighbor. Temporary solution at best.
 
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At least they have the option to get high speed service, even at great cost. I live in a development with over 100 homes, 3 miles outside a town of ~100k and have the choice of hopelessly overloaded Century Link DSL, rooftop microwave receiver or T-Mobile home internet. Comcast refuses to run high speed out the 3 miles to the subdivision. And this is an upper end subdivision for the area with homes ranging from 2000 to over 10,000 sqft.

Currently I have the rooftop microwave option. Except for the evenings I get pretty good speeds. Anywhere from 15-30 Mbps. But in the evenings, which is when I'd like to high speed the most, the speeds drop to 1-8 Mbps making streaming HD content a challenge at times. On the positive side, the service is pretty cheap at $48/month and quite reliable. I tried T-Mobile Home Internet but it would only connect on 4G and the speeds weren't as good as the rooftop microwave so I ended up returning it.

On a hopeful note, there are lots of new homes going up which so eventually Comcast will realize there are enough suckers out here that want to give them money but have little hope it will be soon. I guessing the infrastructure funds that were to be used to expand high speed internet across the country have already been spent on new yachts, mountain chalets and beach side bungalows for the top ISP executives. Might have to wait for the next round of gov't. giveaways to see if they spend any of it on infrastructure.
 
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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.

Well, no on ever expects the Spanish Inquisition, either.

But: $27k for a <200 foot run? That's absurd. I would press for a detailed accounting, and offer to run the trench myself. For comparison, a drain replacement on my property required excavating, removing, and replacing a 110 foot drain line, plus interconnects to the municipal sewer and to my house, and that cost under $4k - which I also thought was excessive, but several bids came in right around that same amount. And cable runs don't have to be 4 feet deep, like drain lines here in the north; the final run from pole to my house for Comcast is barely covered with dirt, thanks to loads of tree roots that make trenching a chore, and it's been fine that way for well over 10 years.

All that said: these days, I would explicitly ask if Internet connectivity was available before buying a house. It might even be considered a known defect if it wasn't, and the sellers would be on the hook (again, in my state) to disclose it or pay for remediation.

So, Comcast absolutely sucks here and ought to be the first against the wall when the revolution comes. But caveat emptor is still sound advice.
My local estimate is $CAD 5k for replacing the sewer line, pretty much what you got. That’s just what it costs to dig up a bunch of space including the city street.

To cross an arterial they need to block traffic on an arterial. That’s not cheap; I believe comcast when they say $80k. If it was a local road it would be cheaper.

It’s not by a major street. In fact, if the house is where I think it is, there’s not even a curb — just an asphalt street. A small cut could be made in the asphalt and the fiber line inserted. If Comcast wanted to, they could do the job a lot cheaper, but why bother? It’s there way or no Internet.
 
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