This is after the first day of work on the electrical service upgrade, all that was done was the digging of the hole. You can see where the conduit terminates and the underground service wire continues in the ground.
thats a very common practice for direct buried service wire. The NEC term for this is called a "Service Lateral" and if this was overhead it would be called a "Service Drop". Here in the US, the utilities are exempt from the NEC but must follow the NESC (National Electrical Safety Code). More than likely, the utility owns up to the line side of the meter socket.
Hey Tony I just found out that the service wire is actually owned by the homeowner up until the transformer or junction box, in this case there is a box in the corner of the yard that supplies this house, plus the neighbours. The utility is responsible for fixing it if it fails, however if we wanted a service upgrade to 200 amps the homeowner has to pay and the utility will not install the wire, an electrical contractor needs to do that. For overhead services they are responsible past the service head. I'm not sure who regulates the utility standards here, all inside wiring is governed by the Ontario Electrical Safety Code (OESC) - a local adoption of the Canadian Electrical Code, which is quite similar to the NEC.
Very Intersting, We have a similar situation here as well. National Grid is the same way with your Utility but WMECO owns up to the line side of the Meter socket. If a Homeowner wants to upgrade to 200 amps in WMECO territory, We will come and upgrade the Lateral to 200 amps.