This morning as I was working, I noticed a regular hatchback with out of state plates slowly driving with it’s hazards on pull up to my neighbor’s green spectrum cable pillar out front of my home. Driver jumped out wearing a basic neon vest (as though he was ‘official’) and opened the pillar, crouched down and did something (couldn’t clearly see his exact actions as it caught me off guard, while communicating with a guy in the passenger seat).
Then he walked across the street towards my pillar and I went out to ask what was going on (as I’ve had official Spectrum technicians come by in the past and am reasonably familiar with what an official visit looks like). As I approached, I could hear them communicating in what resembled an Eastern European language. I said “Hi, can I help you, is everything alright?”…which interrupted them…and the guy in the vest waved me away in poor english saying “fine fine fine.”
Not wanting to escalate, I said, okay sure, and watched them move along to our next neighbors house while they did the same thing. They kept going door to door and hopping out for between 30 seconds to 2 minutes at every pillar. 1 guy would jump out and open it up, other guy stayed in passenger seat.
The combination of all of this was sketchy enough for me to alert local police dispatch who said they’d investigate, and contact spectrum, who said they didn’t have any technicians scheduled in our area, and were going to escalate this to leadership and send out local dispatch to try and see what might have been going on…
I still have no idea if I’m overreacting, but my sense was that these guys were up to something fishy, and both police and spectrum tend to agree…I just have no idea what it could be…what could they be gaining by opening up everybody’s box and doing some kind of hacking/sniffing/blocking??
As far as I know, the only thing inside these pillars is a weatherproofed coaxial internet cable that connects into each home? We are not on fiber.
Thanks for any insight as I continue to play detective.
Probably a contractor that does audits. Cable companies audit their connections often. Maybe inspections but very unlikely being sub contracted to the cheapest
I actually work for Spectrum as a Plant Maintenance Technician, we are rolling out some major plant changes over the next year and to prepare for these changes we have contractors doing plant walkouts. This is basically an audit to make sure the maps of the plant are accurate and there aren’t changes made that weren’t properly recorded that will cause issues when the plant is upgraded.
Subcontractors doing sub contract work. Either auditing or making sure the fittings are good.
Most subcontractors get pulled out of the area to eliminate any ties to the local area.
Comcast/spectrum/ATT will pay someone from 2 states over to come and do auditing/etc.
Next year: " I never see Spectrum trying to fix things around here! "
bro you need to chill lol, rural ok checking in but also you sound too paranoid here. leave your workers alone please