Cutting the cord - literally. Downed utility lines from storm

I woke up this morning to two of my overhead utility lines (pole to house) sagging in my driveway.  The little post they attach to on the roof of the house pulled off because of snow/ice weight.

I know it is not electric, and I know it isn't my Fios.  I'm 90% sure one is coax for cable and the other one is probably phone... neither of which I use.

Can I cut them off?  Do I contact the phone and cable companies and have them formally disconnect them at the pole, or can I just put my ladder up and cut them off the pole?

I'm very possibly wrong, but I believe the utility company owns the cable until it gets to your house, so cutting them off seems like a bad idea. 

And just in general it seems like a bad idea. 

I've cut them before.  My house had a bunch of unused old wires coming in like that and some were even to utilitiy services that didn't exist anymore.  Cut them close at my end and just coiled them up back at the pole end.  No problems.

We didn't use the cable at my last house. I cut it, coiled it up and strapped it the the base of the pole. There it stayed for the next 10 years. No one really cared. 

Cut it. 

You may as well call them.  If they do agree to come out and disconnect them, it saves you the time and effort of doing it yourself.  If they don't agree, you haven't lost anything.

I didn't cut mine, I disconnected them from the boxes on the house. and coiled them up at the base of the pole. 

I don't think they work anyway. When we moved in the cable internet guy had to run a brand new line from the pole to the house because there was too much interference on the old line. Yes, he just left the old line hanging there. 

I haven't cut my unused cables yet, but I'm thinking about it, and pretty sure others on my block have been.  The tangle of cords haphazzardly danglinging from the pole in the middle of the block don't exactly look professional (right behind my house, it looks like garbage).

My house had 1x unused phone line and 2x unused cable lines run to it, Spectrum came and ran a new line to the pole since I was not getting decent speed.  Asked the Spectrum guy when he was here what to do about the unused line, because one was haphazardly draped across the roof of my back garage and the other two were uncomfortablty pulling at my trim.  

His advice was as follows:

If you call the company to come remove a functioning/installed line, they won't.  Even if the line is abandoned and functionally obsolete.  If you cut the line off your house and let it hang at the pole and then call them to report a downed wire, they will come remove it.  

So I cut them all off, let them hang at the pole.  A year later my neighbor noticed them hanging, called the company, they are gone now.  

Excellent info.  Thank you.

Now I just need to find out what companies used to service the house.  (deregulated state)

Since GRM and we tend to want to diy I will leave this here: please don’t ever put a ladder against a pole and work on it. Leave it to the pros. If you happen to be there when some idiot crashes into a pole at the end of the street and the 115,000 volt transmission line contacts the neutral, all the assumptions you made about what parts of that pole are safe may no longer be valid. Jcamper. 

115kV?  That's not that bad.  Good way to lose weight and have a few months off work if you ask me

Of course, I'm kidding.

Good news is, I found the company that used to service the house and they came and took down the lines

Jcamper said:

Since GRM and we tend to want to diy I will leave this here: please don’t ever put a ladder against a pole and work on it. Leave it to the pros. If you happen to be there when some idiot crashes into a pole at the end of the street and the 115,000 volt transmission line contacts the neutral, all the assumptions you made about what parts of that pole are safe may no longer be valid. Jcamper. 

As someone you regularly does this type work I'd say that the greater danger is an unsafe pole or ladder not proper for this type of work.  You'd be surprised at the number of live (110/220) guide wires are out there. There's a reason we use fiberglass ladders.  You are correct in that no one not trained/certified should go up a utility pole.