Bell MTS cuts frustrated homeowner’s outdoor power line; turns out his call is not that important to them

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This article was published 13/06/2023 (845 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Transcona homeowner’s front yard has been left in the dark for months after a contractor working for Bell MTS severed an electrical line powering an ornamental lamp post.

Peter Rogers said one of the two ornamental lamp posts he installed on either side of his driveway shortly after moving into his home in 1987, suddenly stopped working last October after a contractor hired by Bell MTS went through his neighbourhood installing fibre cable.

Rogers said he has been complaining since then but, as of Monday, no repairs have been made.

“It has been eight months — I think I’ve been more than patient,” he said. “It worked fine for 36 years until this group mucked around under my driveway.

“I just want it fixed.”

A series of Free Press stories last year found so many Winnipeg homeowners had lost their landline phone services — some for months — that the CRTC finally stepped in and ordered the company to file monthly reports so it could keep tabs on how the repairs were going.

Bell MTS blamed the outages on both the lack of maintenance previous company owners had put into the traditional phone system infrastructure, and the fact Winnipeg had an extremely wet spring last year.

The company also said at the time it was installing new fibreoptic cable as quickly as it could to replace the old telephone wires.

Unfortunately for Rogers, it was that installation that cost him his electrical connection to his lamp post.

”The crews did horizontal drilling under the yards, sidewalks and driveways in order to create a tunnel through which the cable was passed,” he said.

“The power cable feeding these two lights runs down under my driveway to the first one then crosses over to the second one.”

Rogers said he didn’t even know the cable had been severed until he turned on the lights for trick-or-treaters on Halloween.

“I thought it was just a burned-out bulb so I changed it, but to no avail,” he said.

“(The next day) I discovered that the electrical wire feeding the second light had been completely ripped off the base of the light socket. It was apparent that the auger used to tunnel under my driveway had snagged the line.”

Rogers said both Bell MTS — and the private contractor — returned last November. He was told it would be fixed by the end of the month.

No one showed and, because the ground was now frozen, he waited until May before calling Bell MTS again.

A technician came out again, but the problem remains.

Late Monday afternoon, Bell MTS spokeswoman Morgan Shipley confirmed the address was part of the company’s fibre expansion project “and it has been identified for property restoration.”

“This work is completed by Bell’s contractor partners in phases, as work that requires full ground exposure can be very challenging to complete in the winter months,” Shipley said.

”We are in contact with the resident and will be onsite this week to further investigate.”

Rogers said, after months of waiting, he’s hoping something finally gets done.

“It’s frustrating,” he said.

“And, in all of this, neither Bell MTS or their subcontractor had the decency to tell me that they had damaged my light.”

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca