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Rogers Wireless POE melted and caught on fire!

Oznam
I've been here awhile
Rogers began fixed wireless lte in my area as of September 2021. I replaced xplornet with rogers in August of this year.
I have a serious concern. An antenna is placed attached to your house pointed toward an lte tower. It is powered using a cat5 POE box located inside your house and a modem is also attached. On Friday I noticed my internet was down since this is my second property I initially thought it was a power outage. Called rogers said i need to be physically there to unplug to reset. Came up Friday night and called rogers. Upon plugging back in the POE box began to sizzle and smoke started pouring out. I unplugged it and it stopped smoking. Technician came on Saturday and said it was because the technician who installed left exposed wire etc. He fixed it and I had internet back up and running. As he was pulling out of driveway the poe box began to sizzle and smoke pouring out again( was already replaced). Called and he came back right away. He replaced outdoor cable and noticed that the bottom 1/3rd of cable was saturated with water which caused my poe power supply to fry and smoke.
Possible causes?
1) defective outdoor rated cable
2) bad install
3) defective antenna causing water to flow down via gravity over time on the inside of cable. Exterior was bone dry.
4) cable was flooded before install and it took long for gravity to bring it to the poe box

Now If I was not here I imagine my house would have been up in flames. I suspect that the large amount of rain last week exposed a weakness in the system.
Many people who have this system in Tiny are not full time residents. My concern is that Rogers has been installing this system and potentially may have same issue as me but do not know it yet. The technician has never seen this issue before. Worse if the owner is not home and they have the same issue as me I can guarantee we are going to see more fires. I am worried it may be due to defective parts etc. as the install is rather basic and seems foolproof.
I cannot believe that water made its way on the inside of the cable. Seems surreal to me. Attached you will find pictures of the POE box and melted cable. Had I not been here I have no idea what could have happened. I am hoping this is a one off freak incident but I fear others may have this issue. If you unplug it and unplug the cable I could feel the moisture etc. Fyi I have a dehumidifier and it was not possible for any water to have made its way into the cable from the inside of my house. My exterior cable is black outdoor rated and it was facing south so i imagine the heat from sun on roof dried out the top portion of the cable and gravity brought it in. The cable was also looped multiple times so there must have been some pressure involved with the sun aiding its movement. Please advise. I imagine rogers will compensate me for this and Hopefully the issue has been resolved, however, I fear others in area may have similar or worse outcome. I became aware of this as many neighbours were on the beach boasting about this over the summer. If we have a wet fall/winter this may lead to more issues. Who knows how many were installed and how many might experience what happened to me.
3 REPLIES 3

Re: Rogers Wireless POE melted and caught on fire!

RogersCorey
Moderator
Moderator

Greetings @Oznam!

 

I'm sorry to hear of this frightening experience. It's absolutely not one to be dismissed but I do want to mention this is the first I've heard of such a thing happening. 

 

The cable loop you see is likely a drip loop which is intended to allow water to drip away from the building and equipment. I don't want to speculate too much on the potential cause as there's too many variables but I do want to address your concerns. 

 

Feel free to send a private message to @CommunityHelps so we can assist you further. For more information on how our Private Messaging system works, you can find out more here.  

 

Regards,

RogersCorey

Re: Rogers Wireless POE melted and caught on fire!

Cory10
I've been around
The same thing happened to me. Tech replaced Poe Monday. Poe burned out Thursday. Smoke and sizzling. There is obviously a problem. I wondered why I felt moisture. Now I I know the problem. Rogers needs to investigate before someone loses a house due to fire. Tech can’t come to Saturday. At least I know what to tell him/her.

Re: Rogers Wireless POE melted and caught on fire!

Hello, @Cory10

 

Thank you for reporting this issue to us. 

 

We would like to investigate this further and gather more details from you.

 

Please send a private message to @CommunityHelps so we can get started. Not familiar with our private messaging system? No worries, click here.

 

RogersTony

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