It seems like every 6-12 months, my internet (Comcast cable) goes out on me and I suddenly realize how dependent I am. To me, internet, phone and TV are utilities just like electricity. They should always be there unless something pretty dramatic happens to cause an outage.
Not so with Comcast. Last night, I sat on a long tech call in which the tech told me three times that she wished I had cable TV so she knew if there was an outage in my area. She was trying to convince me to sign up for their TV service. At which point I finally said: you’re not really convincing me, considering if I had TV service, its likely that would be out too! — She then backed down on that idea.
… And then picked up another sales opportunity: home service. In short, she wants me to pay ~$4/month so that all wiring INSIDE my house would be covered through their technicians. This is insane. ALL the wire IN or OUT of my house was put there BY Comcast! Its a straight run into the router and nothing has changed. I felt compelled to ask her: “so, if my wiring is bad, then its because your techs improperly installed it – but you’re not going to cover their work unless I pay you to fix problems they caused?” — Her response: “yes, well, no, well, yeah…”
Brilliant!
In the end, a simple stop by my local Comcast location for a new router fixed the issue – as it does every 6-12 months. Its such a regular thing, that I’m putting a note on my calendar now to just walk in and get a new one for no reason six months from now. Seriously!
But that brings up the next challenge I have to deal with: TV. I have DirecTV and don’t have anything great to report there either. Their DVR unit is buggy, at best. Their service is expensive and I’m still upset over the tools their technician stole from my 2 years ago when it was installed. Until last night, I thought I’d switch over to Comcast, but now I’m not sure. Apparently, Dish is my only other option.
So why is it that all of this is so frustrating. We all pay top dollar for phone, TV and internet and at the end of the day, every service option has something about it that is frustrating. Shouldn’t all this “just work” by now?
</venting>
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