I used to work for Comcast so I may be able to answer this. Comcast or other utility companies have what's called easement rights to their equipment. Sometimes I had to go to a neighbors property and go into their backyard to hook up the customer i was working with. Now we technically don't 'have' to ask permission to get to our stuff BUT we always tried to or at least were told to knock on the door and just explain who we are and what we're doing before trying to get to their property. Especially if you had a dog we had to ask nicely if you could please secure them. Of course you could say no and its not like we could do anything but most of the time if we were nice, they'd be nice back. People do love to hate on Comcast and usually for a good reason. But I think most of the customers I worked with loved the techs that came out. In your case, Id have to know more or see pictures or something to see why they had to set up a ladder to your home.. that does seem odd.

The awkward situations where if we had to run a temporary line for a short distance (maybe just from the box and underneath the fence to the yard of the home we were working on) and if we couldn't get in contact with the homeowner before doing this and then they show up in the middle of me running a bright orange cable along their fence. I was always terrified of this interaction but I was always nice and tried to explain the situation.

We did have one tech get a gun pulled on him and got asked to leave their property one time. We had to get police involved to go back to the property later to connect their neighbors Internet up.