Yearly Archives: 2007

My brief fling with Comcast

Rant

In June we decided to check out one of RCN’s competition, Comcast. We chose Comcast because of their digital voice messaging offer. I was intrigued by the ability to check voicemail online. I’d always thought this would be fun, to be able to listen to voice messages by clicking a link or button in a browser window. It was pretty cool, but with all the trouble we had with our connection – I wish we’d either stayed with RCN or gone to Verizon FiOS instead.

It began fine – we got hooked up with Comcast in a couple of hours, the technician was friendly enough and things seemed to be going smoothly. Sometime in August – around the first week, we began having outages in our Internet and dropped phone calls. We had a Comcast technician at our house pretty much every week, sometimes more often. My next door neighbor commented that the other neighbors were going to begin thinking I was having an affair with a Comcast technician.

I wrote about the entire sordid affair (there’s that word again) on dslreports.com (and was snubbed because I’d only just joined) if you want to read it.

About a month ago we got so fed up we decided to go with Verizon FiOS instead. They were supposed to come out and install their service last Thursday, but the representative I spoke to in September didn’t file the order correctly, so our telephone number was not ready to be removed from Comcast’s clutches. Verizon apologized and is giving us a free month of phone service for the mistake and because I reported the representative as being rude.

We were worried Comcast would hold us to a contract, but somehow the contract was never signed (or didn’t get to them). I’m kind of surprised Comcast has not called and tried to get us to stay, but perhaps Verizon still has not asked for our telephone number.

Ohh – I like this story:

75-Year-Old Woman Takes Hammer to Comcast Office

Gave up the good life for me…

Song Blog,

Oh boy – you’re in for it now…

I found a stack of LPs and a few 45’s from my childhood and just purchased an ION USB turntable so I can upload all those old songs to my web space (at least until the RIAA yells at me, or worse) and allow you to listen to them while you read my stories.

The most embarrassing of the finds is one I’d completely forgotten about, but remembered immediately upon finding it. (Ok, the B-side was a little worse — maybe I’ll upload that one if I run out of stories)

Glen Campbell released The Dreams of the Everyday Housewife in 1968. I was 12. Somehow I became the owner of the 45 with this song on it. Because I remember the song, I think I may have been older when I liked it, but who knows… Perhaps I was really 12.

I found a 45 of The Dreams of the Everyday Housewife on a closet shelf in my mother’s vacation home in Hazelhurst, Wisconsin.


Comcast Blues

Technology

The mere fact I’m writing about Comcast indicates a problem. I don’t think I ever mentioned RCN when we had it for an Internet Service Provider – because it actually worked most of the time. Comcast, on the other hand, goes out regularly – including the phone service. The latest issue was with a dead phone. A call to Comcast resulted in a pair of technicians visiting us the next day and announcing that we had “too many splits” to the modem. That we needed to phone Comcast for a “change of service” and get an “independent line” to the modem.

I immediately phoned Comcast. It took 5 calls and 45 minutes to find someone who

  1. Understood the problem
  2. Was not “cut off” when being transferred to
  3. Was not “cut off” when looking at my records
  4. Agreed to not charge me $30 for the recommended solution

However, he couldn’t help me yesterday because there was a 2 hour block on the account. He gave me his extension and said to call back.

When I called back this afternoon I was again sent on a circuitous route – this time pushing buttons in response to the automated questions which kept on leading back to the main one. I eventually spoke to the same person who informed me that the reason some people charge is because they get commission points. It all makes sense and reminds me of the conflicting information given to me when my mom was being set up for Comcast.

So Thursday they will come and maybe solve the problem of dropped dial tones, telephone calls and spotty Internet service.