Sunday, August 09, 2009

Cable = Suck

My cable (including Internet access) died last Wednesday. I called "customer service" on Thursday, spent a half hour on the phone with the automated trouble-shooter, then was transferred to a human and started over. After further checking they finally agreed the cable was out and scheduled a guy to come fix it the next day. He arrived and had not been told anything of my issue, but upon hearing it was out completely he intuited that the problem was outside. He discovered the cable had been disconnected, which took about five minutes to reconnect.

I had hoped they would reimburse me for the two days when I had no service, but instead they decided to charge me full price plus an additional $35 for the visit. WTF? If they decide their earnings are low, they can always raise revenue by randomly disconnecting customers and then charging them to have services eventually restored.

The sad thing is they are still a better deal than the local phone company. I had DSL in my old location, moved, and was told I had to buy all new equipment to get DSL in the new neighborhood. It was slower than before, then a storm damaged the phone lines and my download speeds dropped to about 200kbps. Several service calls later and an older technician found that the problem was in the junction box at the base of the apartment complex. Then everything was good - still slower than before (1.2 mbps vs. 1.5), but it worked and the phones were clear. Less than two weeks later, we had another thunderstorm and the problems returned. I endured three more service visits but finally gave up and cancelled all phone service when, despite telling them what the last technician said, they were completely unable to solve the issue.

Note - Georgia has thunderstorms the way Antarctica has cold, so if whatever you're peddling isn't water resistant, you may want to relocate to Death Valley.

I'll be glad when this Internet fad is over and something better replaces it.

7 comments:

Unknown said...

Sorry to hear. The cable here went out with any wind and Cale told us there was no problem. I had and have DSL, which works very well (and once when power and phone was down,UPS for one the other I have no idea for the other), but switched to Dish for TV and it is actually up more than the Cable was (even with storms). The DSL is actually faster than the neighbors cable and they complain all the time (we have a station down the street). but will not switch because they believe every commercial cable tells them ( or is it sells them). Sorry about your issue. I hope when i move to VA, I do not run into the same issue.

Jay said...

Last month my cable and internet went out five or six times. They're claiming that they have been having problems with vandalism. I think they just have crappy equipment and they're too cheap to upgrade it.

I also had to get rid of DSL. Alltel is the worst freaking phone company that has ever existed.

Robin said...

we lose our cable all the time, we get a lot of bad storms around where i am and we have a lot of trees that like to take down power lines. fun.

Hit 40 said...

Verizon does internet and of course cell service. And... I think they even do cable tv now? Plus, you could do the internet anywhere with cell phone service. Just a thought.

We have the power out maybe every other month? Not bad.

Unknown said...

Do you have Comcast? Some moron cable tech disconnected the wires outside my house by accident and the gave me a little money back. Least hey could do. But I still think the cost of cable TV itself is insane. I got a triple play deal where I get cable, internet and phone but I don't use mt land line. Comes out to an OK deal but could be better.

Kathy B! said...

SOOO sorry to hear this. Internet issues under any circumstances are terrible.

I can't believe the system is fickle enough to be thwarted by thunderstorms...

I've had no problems yet (knocking on wood...)

Avitable said...

Looks like it's back to smoke signals!