Comcast sucks
Okay, as some of you know, Comcast decided to suddenly yank our cable service out from under us midday Thursday the 23rd. (It's obviously not something related to the digital switchover, because if it had been, we would have lost our signal on 6/12. BUT, we didn't. And we were able to get all channels on all 3 machines (more on that later) that we had hooked up to our analog cable during every DTV test and for the month and a half from 6/12 to 7/23!)
Apparently, they decided that ALL customers must switch to digital. Too bad they didn't warn anyone. There have been no notifications on tv, no ads about it, no notice on our bills, NOTHING. But, when we called them, they said that we had no choice. Yay.
Our choices were: wait for a technician to come out on THURSDAY THE 30TH (a week? A WEEK?), or come by their office and pick up a digital box and install it ourselves.
Yeah, we went in early today (Friday the 24th) and left early enough to get there before they closed. Along with a heaping long line of other people also coming in to either replace non-working boxes or whatever. And they had 1 guy working. After we stood on line for about 15 minutes, they finally got a second person there. DUH. After work on a Friday? And they didn't think there would be a lot of people coming in?
Anyway. The guy at the desk helpfully told us that our old cable box was older than he was. Yay?
We got the new box, brought it home, and hooked it up.
And called the number they gave us to activate it, but that number was closed until 8am tomorrow. Come ON, people, buy a clue...
I got online for a live chat thing, and got a customer service number that was actually staffed, called them, had them try to activate it, and found out that something in the hookup was blocking the signal. Oh yay. I asked them to hold on, switched some cables around, and then heard the phone do that 'the phone's off the hook' buzz. Yep, they hung up on me. *sigh*
I call back, I get someone else, I go through the whole thing again. And they try to send the activation signal and again, error.
Guess what.
You can't have a splitter on the digital thingo because it blocks the signal. So, only 1 VCR taping only 1 channel.
This time, the guy stayed on the phone while I completely switched things around, and he tried again. STILL nothing. SO, we will have to have a technician out here to poke at it. This time, at least, they quoted me Tuesday. However, this of course means I have to take off work. I also have to move a bunch of stuff around, because despite their claims that our old cable should still be okay, I'm betting it's the 20-year old cable that's causing it, and that's behind a cabinet and some other stuff. *sigh*
SO. So far, this upgrade has cost us:
TV service from 11:30am 7/23 to approximately 5:00pm 7/28
an hour of sleep on 7/24
a sore back from moving stuff around to get to the cables behind the entertainment center
Free time this weekend while I move more stuff around
At least 5 hours of leave on Tuesday
The ability to tape three different networks at the same time on our 3 different machines (which, as I said before, worked perfectly fine on the old analog cable. Moneygrubbing bastards.
So yeah, really NOT what I'd consider an upgrade.
Apparently, they decided that ALL customers must switch to digital. Too bad they didn't warn anyone. There have been no notifications on tv, no ads about it, no notice on our bills, NOTHING. But, when we called them, they said that we had no choice. Yay.
Our choices were: wait for a technician to come out on THURSDAY THE 30TH (a week? A WEEK?), or come by their office and pick up a digital box and install it ourselves.
Yeah, we went in early today (Friday the 24th) and left early enough to get there before they closed. Along with a heaping long line of other people also coming in to either replace non-working boxes or whatever. And they had 1 guy working. After we stood on line for about 15 minutes, they finally got a second person there. DUH. After work on a Friday? And they didn't think there would be a lot of people coming in?
Anyway. The guy at the desk helpfully told us that our old cable box was older than he was. Yay?
We got the new box, brought it home, and hooked it up.
And called the number they gave us to activate it, but that number was closed until 8am tomorrow. Come ON, people, buy a clue...
I got online for a live chat thing, and got a customer service number that was actually staffed, called them, had them try to activate it, and found out that something in the hookup was blocking the signal. Oh yay. I asked them to hold on, switched some cables around, and then heard the phone do that 'the phone's off the hook' buzz. Yep, they hung up on me. *sigh*
I call back, I get someone else, I go through the whole thing again. And they try to send the activation signal and again, error.
Guess what.
You can't have a splitter on the digital thingo because it blocks the signal. So, only 1 VCR taping only 1 channel.
This time, the guy stayed on the phone while I completely switched things around, and he tried again. STILL nothing. SO, we will have to have a technician out here to poke at it. This time, at least, they quoted me Tuesday. However, this of course means I have to take off work. I also have to move a bunch of stuff around, because despite their claims that our old cable should still be okay, I'm betting it's the 20-year old cable that's causing it, and that's behind a cabinet and some other stuff. *sigh*
SO. So far, this upgrade has cost us:
So yeah, really NOT what I'd consider an upgrade.