Rogers Concurrence Form from Cyient / Telecon Design Inc.

[agnostos]

Has anyone had strangers coming to their door with a "Rogers Concurrence Form" asking for personal information and for signed consent to have a vault to be installed on their property?  I'm trying to determine whether it is legitimate but there's nothing on the form that makes it easy to validate.

The two people who have come to my door so far have no means of authenticating themselves -- when asked, they flash a nondescript work badge that proves absolutely nothing.  According to the form, they represent Rogers subcontractors from either Telecon Design Inc. or Cyient.  The planner named on the form does not have any public listings on LinkedIn or elsewhere that can validate who they are.  The contractor named on the form is on LinkedIn but he does not work for either Telecon or Cyient; yet there is a Cyient email address provided as his contact info.  The phone number given is not a corporate contact, only a cell phone that I cannot reverse lookup.  They have been asking me to provide my personal information -- information that Rogers should already have -- which makes this all the more suspect.  No other means of contact are provided on the form.

Even if this was a legitimate inquiry, the planning diagram clearly indicates a proposal to dig on my property, right in the middle of my front lawn.  I understand that public services and utilities may have an easement onto my property, but I would expect such a request to come through more official channels or at least via some means that I can actually validate as legitimate.  It's also not clear what happens if I do nothing.  I may cave in and provide them the personal information and signature in order to explicitly deny my consent for the installation, but I'm loath to give out any such information to an entity I can't verify.  

Any information would be much appreciated.

***Edited Labels***

[RogersMoin · Accepted solution]

Hello, @agnostos.

Welcome to Rogers Community Forums! 

Thank you for posting your concern in the Community. We have been laying the groundwork to bring FTTH (Fibre to the Home) to residences across our cable footprint. We’re continuing to invest in our network to deliver more reliable internet to your neighbourhood.

You can send us a private message @CommunityHelps so we can submit your Consent on your behalf. You can find details about our private messaging in this blog.

Cheers,

RogersMoin

[Jtrossman]

Had a stranger come to my door today with the same story. It seemed sketchy.  The person said she was with Geegnet which I’ve never heard of.   I’m not inclined to consent to these strangers digging up my front lawn. If Rogers really wanted my consent they would take the time to notify me in a professional and informative  way rather than just allowing someone to show up unannounced and with so little official documentation.  I’m also concerned that if I allow the digging Rogers will use that as a pretext to “market” yet more of their products to me and/or try to persuade me to cancel “legacy” cable (as they now call old fashioned cable TV).  

[Datalink]

@Jtrossman @agnostos personal opinion, contact your city alderman and ask very specifically what are the rights granted to the companies by the city to work on your property, within the easements of your property.  That includes any permission granted by the city to dig up your property and install any cable vaults.  In theory, since the fibre conduits will be crossing city streets, Telecon, or any other company should have approached the city with their respective plans for the work and for remedial action to be taken after all of the conduit has been pulled.  Those plans might also include obtaining permission from various homeowners, where applicable.

Also personal opinion, any consent form isn't worth the paper that its written on.  The only potential reason that a company would ask for your permission to work on your property is that their planning on going beyond the easements, onto your property, where they have no authority to enter without your permission.  Other than that, the companies will simply enter and work on the easements whether you want them there or not.  So, it behooves you to know exactly where your easements are.

Dig up your property map and physically locate your property markers.  Know where they are and know where the easement boundaries are, so that you can absolutely deny anyone or any company from entering or working on your property without your permission, if that is your choice.  

Speaking from experience, we had Telecon in our neighbourhood pulling fibre conduit for Bell.  The crews showed up without any prior notice, digging up lawns, driveways and tons of Rogers cables, wherever they wanted to.  Fibre was pulled to the homes, without homeowner permission and those homes with cut driveways ended up with a cold patch at the bottom of the driveway.  In some cases, this was installation number two, the previous one being a Rogers fibre pull to the neighbourhood node.  I'm sure that the homeowners whose driveways were dug up in that episode were less than impressed to have it happen once again.  Any property remediation after the installation was minimal and laughable at best.  Duties were sub-contracted to smaller and smaller companies and individuals where those companies and individuals were not equipped to do the job they were supposed to do, nevermind restoring the properties as they should have been restored.  At the end of the day, if you asked any one of them a question as to what the bleep they were doing, they would simply shrug their shoulders and tell you to take a hike or that they didn't know anything.  There was zero accountability throughout the entire process.

The whole episode was more than just sketchy.  The companies appear to be operating in a grey zone, where there is an easement granted by the city, and where homeowners do not have any knowledge of the limits placed on companies who decide to enter those easements and do whatever they want to do.  No doubt there are federal regulations regarding telecom installation, but, the buck has to stop somewhere, and that first stop should be with the city that planned the easements in the first place.  Because of the lack of knowledge of the homeowners, these companies simply do whatever they want to do at any point on your property, regardless of placement of the easements.

So, first stop is your city alderman.  Press him or her for answers regarding the limits placed on companies when it comes to entering and working on your property easement, with or without your permission.

In the case where a company is looking for permission to install a cable vault on your property, and actually needs your permission to do it, as the vault would be on your property instead of an easement, that tells me that the designer is looking to pull conduit in a straight line, from point A to point B and is too lazy to break that length up into smaller chunks which can be run from Easement A to Easement B to Easement C, etc, etc.  So, personal opinion, no thanks, run smaller lengths of conduit and stick to the easements. 

If you're able, be present when the work is in progress.  Take pictures, lots and lots of pictures.  Document everything that happens on your property.  You just never know if and when you might need them.  

As @Jtrossman pointed to, there is an issue with future internet access.  From what I've read, and I think this still the case, Third Party Internet Access (TPIA) providers have been refused access to fibre installations.  I believe that's still a bun fight going on with the CRTC.  At some point, it's most likely that the copper installation will be shut down and Rogers will convert the entire neighbourhood to fibre service.  That would be the logical course for any company to pursue.  Unless the CRTC forces the big incumbents to allow access to the fibre systems, any TPIA company who might offer competitive service, or who were previously providing your service will be locked out of  your neighbourhood.  I haven't seen the very latest on this but I believe that is the current situation.  So, there will be no pretext, it will simply be, switch to fibre or you're out of luck.  That won't happen anytime soon, but, most likely it will happen. 

The upside is that fibre service should finally provide a means to run higher data rates.  It becomes a question of what that will cost, compared to any legacy services that you might be running at the present time.

So, end rant:

1.  Contact your city alderman to find out the facts;

2.  Find your property map, physically locate your property markers and know exactly where the easements are;

3.  Be prepared to stand your ground, so to speak;

4.  Document everything.  Take pictures ......

5.  If necessary, where something has gone wrong on your property and damage has ensued, contact the work crew supervisor and work you way up from there.  If necessary, get your city alderman involved. 

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@Jtrossman wrote:

Had a stranger come to my door today with the same story. It seemed sketchy.  The person said she was with Geegnet which I’ve never heard of.  

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I don't know anything about GeegNET either.  Looks like they are also known as 2629971 Ontario Inc..  Their web site is still only partially-built and has been under construction for a few years , and their CEO also lists himself on LinkedIn as the CEO of GeegLe Media, iTaskApp and Agora Holdings.  I do not see any other employees currently listed on LinkedIn.  However, that old picture of the ISS (?!) on their home page (from late-2006/early-2007, along with the other stock photos) sure makes them look super-impressive!

I’m not inclined to consent to these strangers digging up my front lawn. If Rogers really wanted my consent they would take the time to notify me in a professional and informative  way rather than just allowing someone to show up unannounced and with so little official documentation.  I’m also concerned that if I allow the digging Rogers will use that as a pretext to “market” yet more of their products to me and/or try to persuade me to cancel “legacy” cable (as they now call old fashioned cable TV).  

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Before you get too upset, have a look at https://www.rogers.com/support/internet/faqs-about-fibre-to-the-home

Normally, during a FTTH build-out in a neighbourhood, most of the work being done will technically not be done on your property.  The fibre conduits, underground vaults and hand holes will be on municipal property.  You can't stop them from doing that work if they have obtained all of the necessary approvals from the municipality.  What they typically only require your consent for is to bring fibre from the curb to your home.  It is in your best interests to allow them to do that, even if you do not plan to switch to a FTTH Internet service today and would prefer to keep your existing services as-is.

HOWEVER, also keep in mind that there will come a day when Rogers will shut down legacy services in your area, and your coax cable will "go dark" and will no longer carry any signals.  Your declining consent for fibre installation now will not stop this from happening and will only make getting fibre services to your home in the future either expensive or impossible.

You should contact the @CommunityHelps  team by sending them a private message.  They can then check the construction schedule for your neighbourhood, determine exactly what will be done on your property and who will be doing the work, and they can also submit any required consent forms on your behalf.

[agnostos]

For some context, I will add that I had already retained a real estate attorney to deal with other easement-related disputes, so I was intimately familiar with the subject and have addressed this matter of consent to my satisfaction (at least for now) with additional assistance from the forum moderators.  And I work in IT so I also understand the process and necessity of laying down fibre.

However, aside from the inadvisable (and frankly creepy) practice of complete strangers coming to your door asking for personal information and hugely consequential consents out of the blue, the key reason why I refused consent for the vault installation is because my yard is elevated by a couple of feet and will eventually need to be leveled down to street level and paved.  A neighbor to one side had done the same a few years ago without warning and without installing a retaining wall to contain the higher ground, so now there is erosion happening to my yard.  This was also not helped by the Metrolinx tunneling that caused my yard to sink (some neighbors reported new cracks in their foundations and flooding, but the Metrolinx engineers have not followed up since they came here to assess complaints).  If Rogers tries to install the vault now at higher ground, they will have to come back later to re-dig and re-install it after all that soil is removed and I should not have to be held liable for that redundant cost and effort, particularly since I explained these circumstances upfront.  Leveling my yard will be very costly and is not my priority right now, nor will I be rushed into it for Rogers' convenience.  Alternatively, if their engineers choose to install it below ground level now, it will leave my yard with a crater in the middle of it, based on the siting diagram provided to me for the vault placement.  There's no quick fix for this situation.

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@agnostos wrote:

However, aside from the inadvisable (and frankly creepy) practice of complete strangers coming to your door asking for personal information and hugely consequential consents out of the blue, 

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Yeah, that's NOT how it should be happening.  When Link-On started doing fibre upgrades in my neighbourhood for Rogers, their crews put up road signs to inform the residents of what they were doing.  Unfortunately, we seem to be nowhere close to getting FTTH just yet... but if that were to happen, the next step should be for Rogers to send people out, wearing red Rogers shirts, to distribute door hangers to every house and offer information packets to anyone who asks.  Rogers should also send out a mailer to every resident, and that should clearly describe the work that will be done, inform residents as to how they can provide consent to the specific work that needs to be done on their property, and provide a schedule of when the work will be performed in all phases of the rollout, including when the new service will be activated and available.  Before any construction commences, locate crews will mark underground utilities and survey crews should mark where fibre will be run and where any above-ground and underground infrastructure will be installed.  Everything should be well organized and orchestrated and there should not be any surprises.

NOBODY should be going door-to-door, pressuring residents to provide consent for upcoming work that they know nothing about, or pressuring them to sign up on the spot for new services.