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Comment by pkaye | Hacker News Reader

If someone wants to remove the old lines from the pole to the house, who would do that now? I don't use my landline anymore and trying to cleanup the clutter of old lines.

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In Seattle area there's https://wirefreesky.com I saved $250 by just using wire cutters.

Previously the power company removed the cable line for me, because their cherry picker was too tall and just drove into it and it snapped. Luckily I was using DSL.

When some branches brought mine down in a storm, I cut mine off on the house side, spooled it up secure with electrical tape, and hung it low on the pole on the street side. Probably shouldn't disconnect it at their box but past there it's yours if you own the house.

Legally I believe it is there equipment up to the cable modem. I would bet what you did is technically illegal depending where you are. Additionally, unterminated lines to a coax network can cause RF interference, and you may actually have created a detectable problem for other people in your area.

I remember Comcast sniffer trucks driving around looking for these... do they still do that? Is it required by the FCC?

I have some coax going to my house left over from some predecessor to Comcast. It's not attached to anything, and it's sagging.

Wirecutters should do the job I think?

legally, maybe not, but in my experience, every time you reactivate the service, they ask to replace that wire from the street to the home even if they don't need to so that they can overcharge ATT/customer... they even often try to replace the existing box on your house with an extra huge one for no practical reason.

Sure, but if you're 100% certain that you will never use their service again that's not such a huge issue. I did the same with a power line on my Canadian property where they kept that line powered up even if I wasn't using the service because we were all on solar and wind. They didn't want to send someone out to take out the road side fuse. I called them and asked them who would be liable if due to their refusal to power down the line someone would get injured and they sent someone out immediately :)

That wasn't a theoretical risk by the way, the first stretch of that line must have been many decades old.

Algoma Power... no love lost between us.

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