In the great consumer rip-off that was the change to digital TV, one of the points during the "everyone has to get a converter" flap was that if you had cable, you didn't have to worry about it.
But now you do, at least if you have Comcast. You have to get a cable box, even if all you have is "expanded basic" and you don't subscribe to any of the premium channels. And it doesn't help you if you have a digital TV or DVR/VCR, because you still need the frelling box. I gather that means that you can forget about setting your DVR/VCR to record things on different channels, since everything has to go through the damn cable box. Oh, and if you have more than one TV, then Comcast is going to tack on an additional rent charge for more than one of those frelling boxes.
One of the things that Comcast is doing, at least in this area, is "guaranteeing" appointments. That apparently is in reaction to the competition from both Verizon FIOS and local cable start-ups, both of which have had considerable success in taking away disaffected customers. (The "guarantee" doesn't apparently mean anything; you won't get back the day's pay you lost waiting for the cable guy to show up, nor will you be able to bust a cap in the ass of his boss.)
I don't know what it is with Comcast. I've been pissed off at them ever since they bought out the locals and began with the "we're giving you two more channels because we like you" routine, followed, in a month or two, by "we're raising your rates four bucks". Residential users are not customers to Comcast, they are a crop: Supply them with cable, fertilize them with bullshit and harvest money.
Then there is the fact that where I work, we have high-speed internet through Comcast. The rates for business internet and home expanded basic cable are not significantly different, but the customer service could not be more different. If I call them up for a business issue, their customer service could not be more helpful. Those guys really do try. But try to get an answer from the residential services side of Comcast and it's as though you called up Dale's Happy House of Retards to consult on the design of a new nuclear reactor.
So now I have to truck on down to their offices and pick up a stinking box and disassemble my TV cabinet and wire it in and have another remote and each time I use it, you can bet your ass that I will pissed off once more at Comcast and be hoping that Verizon gets FIOS into this area pretty damned soon.
I hate Comcast.
What… What Was His Plan?!
34 minutes ago
11 comments:
I walked away from them a year and a half ago -- went to FiOS -- and life has never been better. They're cheaper, as well.
In summation, fuck Comcast in their hairy, wax-clotted ears.
I'd be on FIOS by now, but it wasn't available. I tried DirecTV and I'm pretty happy, and slightly less poor. Still have to have Comcast for internet, though.
Comsuck here at work is running 24000 kbs and don't know why. High speed at home is from a small wireless company that has been very successful. Whenever possible give my money to the little guys. Their speeds are from 3-7k. Quit TV years ago and can stream anything I want to watch.
On the issue of TV. For years in Denver people could pick up a number of channels from the towers on Lookout Mountain and that included all the local ones.
Now with digital a friend tells me there are many channels even more than before all high def. Don't even need cable and that's cool to be able to get this swill for free.
Yeah, I had an interesting run in with a Comcast tech in regards to a cable modem.
Tech: Are the lights on?
Me: Yes.
Tech: Does the modem have a standby button?
Me: Yes.
Tech: Push it.
Me: ... Okay.
Tech: Are the lights off?
Me: Yes.
Tech: Now try to connect.
At the end of this call, I got the it's the problem with the modem or my computer. Here is the thing. (a) my computer has been working correctly for the last two years. (b) I was getting data from them, they were redirecting me to their sign up for service page. I guess the retard did want to deal with me any longer.
Hello!
Thanks for the feedback. I do apologize for any poor experiences you or the commentors here had with our company. Please email our team the address below. We can have boxes sent out to you or arrange a service call at your convenience, if you prefer. You can reach out to us anytime regarding this or any Comcast concern. We're here to help if you need us.
Kind Regards,
Melissa Mendoza
Comcast Customer Connect
National Customer Operations
We_Can_Help@cable.comcast.com
@ComastMelissa
I wish I had an alternative. You'd think that in the Silicon Valley we'd have all sorts of high speed Internet providers, I mean, we're one of the most wired areas of the country. But... nope. It's Compost, or AT&Fail DSL. That's it. That's all we get. It sucks big time.
- Badtux the Competition-deprived Penguin
I won't do business with Comcast. They repeatedly demonstrated incompetence at keeping the Internet connection alive, and in the end they insisted on a payment of a month's service that they didn't deliver after three different reps had implied that they'd drop that charge.
I've had DSL ever since (more than three years now). It's slower, but reliable, and their billing department hasn't lied to me yet.
I quit watching TV in February when the box became necessary. I summed up my attitude regarding Comcast in this post from January.
Lockwood, they're shipping the bloody box to me. But yeah, I was tempted to call them up and tell them to disconnect the frelling service.
BT
I use speakeasy dsl in the bay area and it works pretty good. There's a bottleneck in my local trunk so I limited to less than the fastest dsl but I would be with at+t or verizon as well. I could get T1 if I win the lottery. Now we come to the crux of the matter, $$$. It works, service is great, it costs more. Wata ya gonna do?
Speakeasy isn't available at my apartment complex, only 256kbit/sec AT&T because I'm too far from the nearest CO, or 1.5 megabit/sec Compost. I will definitely look at getting DSL next time I'm close enough to a CO to get a decent speed though, Compost is Comcraptastic.
- Badtux the Stuck Penguin
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