At work yesterday I found out that my website was down. It happens every once in a while, usually just need to re-boot the cable modem. When I get home I do that. It doesn’t come back. I turn on the TV. Nothing but static. I’m in the middle of a cable outage!

So I do what I normally do in this situation, call Comcast. The front-line support guy I spoke to was most unhelpful. He said the first appointment they have is on Wednesday (2 days!). I then complain that I have to wait 2 days to fix something they messed up, at which point he stressed to me that it has to be something wrong in the house. I told him that this level of service is unacceptable when I am having a cable outage. The work “outage” must have a special meaning in the cable industry, because he vehemently denied that I was having an “outage” and that it was just something wrong inside my house. At this point, I asked to speak to his manager. After a 10 minute wait, he said the manager would call me back.

2.5 hours later, no callback. So I call in again. But I had more ammo with me this time. I knew that somebody nearby was getting cable today, because Miss Utility came around and marked where all the underground pipes and stuff were. So when I took the dog out, I looked for the tell-tale thin ditch that they leave when they pull the line out to the house, and sure enough it was there.

I thought I had them this time, since I knew somebody had been out to my block today. I mentioned that to the second person I spoke with and the fact that it had worked before this person had been out in my neighborhood, but not after. No dice, still nothing until Wednesday. I was tired and quite a bit frustrated, so I just took the appointment and hung up in disgust.

In the mean time, I’ve moved my site to a new home until my cable is hooked up again (optimistically Wednesday, realistically next week…). With this current arraignment, there are a few things that are broken (like RSS syndication…), so please hand tight until this all gets straightened out. Now, back to my rant.

I don’t understand how a utility can treat people like this and not get into any trouble. One of two things happened yesterday in my neighborhood. 1. The new installer didn’t have any more taps available in the pedestal and randomly chose someone to disconnect. 2. They cut the line to my house while installing the new cable line.

No other utility has problems like this. In my 20-some years of using a telephone, I can’t think of a time that I picked up that receiver and didn’t hear a dial tone. Or when I turned on the gas range and didn’t get gas. And they have to do the same number of connects/disconnects that the cable company does. They must just hire better trained workers.

There are some things that cable companies don’t get. Since they have only had to deal with non-essential video service, they don’t rush out to fix problems. “So you can’t watch TV for a day or two, read a book instead, it is probably better for you”. And that may have worked in the past. But they are the number one provider of broadband internet access into the home. That service is much more like the other utility services that I described. I can go without TV, but I need internet. I sell things on ebay and need to be able to e-mail. Both my wife and I do work from home where we need internet access to do the work.

And to think that the cable operators want to sell you phone service! If I had Comcast phone service yesterday, due to their stupidity, I wouldn’t have even been able to call them to tell them about it! I think the FCC and local cable offices need to crack down on the cable operators. They need to stop treating Data service like video service, because it is not. And I certainly hope they don’t start treating Voice service like Video, or else I may be unable to make a call the next time my neighbor gets new service.

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