Shoot me in the Face - Day 2 - A Comcast Story
Posted: Aug 4, 10:58 AM
<Farnsworth Voice> Good news everyone! </Farnsworth Voice>
A few hours after I started complaining again yesterday, Comcast sent out another PR technician to take a look at the problem and drop off a brand new DTC box that I was told I would have to leave plugged into the wall if I didn’t want to get downgraded again to their basic cable package and lose access to my Clear QAM channels. For those that are unfamiliar with the DTC box, it is like Comcast’s DTA box but it enables you to access their On-Demand and Pay-Per-View stuff – more things that I would never use nor want from Comcast.
I explained very nicely to the technician that I thought it was stupid that I had to leave a box that I was never going to use hooked up to a cable outlet in my apartment just so I could access channels that I was accessing perfectly fine for over 6 months prior. Luckily my PR technician, Danielle, agreed with me and was nice enough to make a phone call and have them notate my account that I would not have the box hooked up, but I would be required to continue to lease it so there would not be any problems down the road. For now the box is sitting in my closet in its pink plastic packaging… sitting there… mocking me. If you can’t tell I am still highly annoyed that I’m forced to lease equipment that I do not need, especially if something happens to it since I’ll get charged somewhere around the wondrous price-tag of $400USD.
After the technician did me a solid and made the call he excitedly showed me the results he was getting from his readings of the cable lines in my apartment as well as from the box outside. This gave me great hope that Danielle would be the man that could fix my cable problems that have been plaguing me since I moved into this place well over a year ago. Anyone that is that excited about their job or the discoveries they make is A’OK in my book and a person I feel I can trust to get the job done.
Once he was done showing me the data and explaining to me what he thought was wrong, he went outside to crawl around under my building to see if he could find the problem. Sure enough, he was back less than 20 minutes with a 3ft length of crusty looking cable that was cut/broken halfway through the middle. It turns out that the cable was just old and bent in such a way that it cracked and was causing my signal to sporadically jump around like a Mexican Jumping Bean. Something that any other technician worth their weight in utility belts would have discovered if they actually did their jobs and looked at the wires instead of saying there was nothing that could be done and driving off.
Danielle was able to replace the cable and then came back inside to test my signal coming into the apartment. According to him it was looking good but he added my cable modem to his “watch list” so he could keep an eye on it to make sure everything stays consistent.
So far everything has been going smoothly… for the most part. I am still dropping my connection every few hours here and there for a few minutes at a time, but I can now use my Internet connection for more than a few moments without it going MIA, which means I can finally get work done without having to go up to a coffee shop to upload my clients projects to their servers. Even with the occasional dropping in service I’m happier than a fat kid in a sugar coated lard factory.
I have Clear QAM access back as well, which is swell since the only channels that get watched in my house are Nick (my daughter) and The Science Channel (me).
While I’m excited to finally be able to properly use the service I have been paying for, for years on end, I am still not happy that I have this stupid DTC box sitting around and taking up space. Obviously I don’t need the stupid box if they were able to notate my account so my service wouldn’t get downgraded if I don’t have it plugged in. It is just completely unnecessary and another way Comcast tries to force you in to this ecosystem of uselessness that they seem so fond of. The good news is, from what I’m told, is that it is included in my package and I won’t have to pay a leasing fee for it… at least that is what they say. I’ll have to check out my next bill to make sure this is true since they told me the same thing about my modem and I pay $4 a month to lease that.