bidding phone company work?

hl_tree

hl_tree

Location
New Fairfield, CT
I was wrapping up a job the other day by dropping off some logs at the client's neighbor. The neighbor and I get to talking, he apparently works for Verizon, the same company my father just retired from after 40 years. So he comes down to the truck once we are done unloading the logs and asks if I had ever considered bidding phone work. A few voices went off in my head... one in particular saying that with the utility companies you have to fight for a few pennies. I half joking asked "Why, are you in charge of the contracts?" To which he replied that he isn't, but a good friend of his is. I said that it is not a direction I would like to take my company in... but thanked him for the opportunity. The guy handed me a few bucks for the logs, and I have to go look at a tree job for him later on.

Long story short, does anybody on here do any work for the phone company? If so, how does it work out for you financially?
 
They usually want you to pay them to clear their lines.
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Up here I believe they charge by the kilometer and anything other than that is cost plus.
We are just looking into it after thirty plus years of not clearing anything.
 
Ha Ha thats funny, around here the phone or cable co won't touch a branch or pay to have it done until it takes the wire down.
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That's because it interferes with their record profits.

I take anything that comes in contact with the messenger if it's large enough to do damage but I don't have the resources available to clear entire spans.
If I have a location I need to get at to repair the cable I'll clear that out.
They tell me that line clearance is coming back this year on a small scale, mostly over grown areas that are causing grief.
 
Hi
We do telecom lineclearance every year. Approxomately 4-500km each year. They pay deacent for the job in my opinion, depending on the currency exhange rate about 800 - 1000$ pr km. The best part is that you get fairly big kontracts and there´s no problem with the payment.
Svein
www.hogstogrydding.no
 
Seen a company stringing new line in Pebble Beach a couple of years back, they did do some "pruning". If the power company would have pruned anything like they did we would have been never let through the gates. I did see some lines cleared in a small section here in norther Arizona but they only seem concerned when they are having problems.
 
I have bid them in the past, but never seen anybody make any money on them. Usually the companies that take those contracts are small companies that need the work and do it in the winter months to keep their employees busy. The TX companies around here will not do anything with their lines at all.
 
Phone companies will bid out work for major projects like big name golf tournments. So they run more lines. With every one using Satellites , bids are getting smaller. Seen that done in past in NJ.
 
Well, I gave my information to the guy today who is apparently a field engineer. He is going to pass it along to the proper people and we shall see from there. He said so long as I either return the bid requests with a price, or say I am not interested in bidding at this time they will keep me on the list. He said that the first time I do not give a response that is it... I'm off the list. We;ll see where this goes. Somebody I know does 1.3 per year off them doing excavation work... so who knows?
 
We worked for phone company for over 30 years. There were many buy outs, new england tel, then nynexx, then bell atlantic, then verizon. It was always a great contract for many years, we would do between $50k-$100k in sales yearly. We gave it up in 2002 because of some disputes with the inspectors. They had us in back yards in worcester takeing out 24" limbs that went up into several leaders and in through the primary for the Item price, Which was like $100. We tried to explain that that back yard jobs like that had to go by the hourly rate because of the time involved. The new inspectors where thick headed, and to make a long story short, it just wasnt worth it anymore.
 
I've done work for verizon some years ago. We did back yard stuff from storm damaged trees that pulled out fiber optic cables. They needed the trees off so they could go in and repair the lines.

They needed same day service so you had to drop your regular work and get there asap. We only cleared the lines, no clean up was involved. But we usually gave the home owners a price on the clean up. It was good money, but i guess we hit them too hard with the prices because after about 5 or 6 jobs they stopped calling us. You also really have to jump through hoops to get paid, but it was worth it.
 
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