Comcast is still picking pockets...it's Comcastic!

With so many people out of work, Comcast seems to think that it should get paid for not working. For not fixing problems. For just being Comcastic.

January 14 our Internet goes out. Surprised? No, it's Comcastic.

I call. I've called Comcast so many times for problems I actually have them in my cell's address book. And no, I don't have Comcast as a telephone provider. Good God, no. Back when, when I switched to just a cell phone, the people at Comcastic couldn't give me a reason to keep my land line. I swear my question was met with what could only have been slack-jawed stupor. You could almost hear the drool dripping down the customer service reps chin as she tried to pull a reason out of the recesses of her brain. I didn't see it; all I heard was the dead air as the Comcastic rep furiously rifled through her prepared script. No answers there? Well, it looks like it's adios to the Comcast land line.

I wish, oh God do I wish I could say good-bye to Comcast for the Internet, but you know how it is. The email address I have with them is so entrenched in my life, if I changed it, I'd disappear like I had just joined the Federal Witness Protection Plan.

Instead I still have to put up with what I put up with tonight.

Like I said, the Internet goes out around January 14th. I could be wrong about that date. I remember thinking when they scheduled a technician to come out on the 16th that the wait wasn't that long. Usually it's close to a week. They don't care that we now use the Internet for everything, some things trivial, some things important. I've blogged about this more than once. They don't care how important the Internet has become in our life.

So a technician is scheduled to come on the 16th. And lo and behold, what happens on the 16th but, just on a lark, I check and I can log on. I decide not to cancel the appointment with the technician, my appointment with destiny, because maybe there is something wrong.

The technician shows up, I tell him the Internet is working, he looks around, can't find anything wrong, goes outside, comes back inside and says the connection outside was a little loose, maybe that was the problem, and tells me the next time I have this problem to plug the Ethernet cable directly in the computer to make sure there's a signal.

No prob.

So, I get the bill, and see that I have a charge for $24.99, for the service call. For what? He didn't fix anything. The Internet was working, and even if he tightened the connection outside, that's still Comcast's territory. So I call to complain, and I'm told that the tech wrote on his report that he actually did something inside the apartment (liar!) and that because we had the same kind of problem back in October and Comcast waived the service charge, they can't do it again, EVEN THOUGH AGAIN, JUST LIKE IN OCTOBER, THEY DIDN'T DO ANYTHING.

So I bitch some more, and the supervisor I'm talking to--well, she's really not a supervisor; she came on the line saying she was covering for the supervisors, which could mean she was just the customer service rep's girlfriend, for all I know--says she'll investigate and ask the technician what the deal is.

To which I have two questions: 1) Do you think he's really going to remember one call out of all the calls he did in January; and 2) If he does remember what the f**k do you think he's going to say?--oh yeah, sorry about that, I lied on the report?

The supervisor-in-waiting said if he sticks to what he says on his report I have to pay the charge. Talk about the effing fox guarding the chicken coop. And this young woman says all of this to me without flinching, without realizing just how idiotic the process is (better, she probably does, she just doesn't give a shit; she's working, paying her rent; it's not her problem.)

So here we go. I'm laid off. I'm not working, and no one's paying me any money. But Comcast doesn't do any work either, and they want $24.95. It's Comcastic! You don't do anything but you want to get paid for it, that to me is just out-and-out stealing. But that's Comcast for you.

Mediocrity and Internet: Comcast, ATT, et. al.

Well, lookee here...the Internet is up today. Comcast worked the kinks out of the wire and today, lo and behold, the little electrons are running through it as slick as if the cable had been RotoRouted.

I think RotoRouted is a verb. Anyway you know what I mean.

Comcast had no idea what the problem was, or even if there was a problem. The techie on the other end of the phone said there weren't any outages and everything was fine (oh yeah, says you) but what I learned from previous encounters with Comcast is that the customer service people, despite what's on their screens, have no idea at all what's going on in the field. And the field and the customer service people don't talk, much less get along. Customer service will just tell you to unplug the modem, count to fifteen, then plug it in again. Oh yeah, reboot the computer. That might work. It's all pretty lame.

Yesterday we couldn't log on, couldn't print, couldn't do much of anything except look at files stored on our disk. Vacation pictures can get a little worn after awhile. Which got me to thinking--agai--about how much we depend on the Internet and technology in general for the day to day doings of our lives.

It's bone-breaking cold out there. I wonder what the temp is. I'll just hit that little button that brings up the local weather and...doh!

Look up a book I heard about. Shop for shirts. Look for a replacement part for the blender. Get my homework for class. Apply for a job. Check my bank balance (kinda important when you're low on funds and you have to write some checks.) Research the two artists I have to interview this weekend. Network with colleagues to further my job search. Send some people who said they'd be my references an email letting them know potential employers will be calling them and I need the work so please don't tell them I'm an axe murderer. These are just some of the things I wanted to do yesterday and for which I needed the Internet.

Trivial and important, we depend/rely/count on/stake our lives on technology and the providers. And the thing about it is, when the Internet goes down, we always say the same thing, It always craps out at the absolute wrong time. That's because, now, there's no good time for the Internet to go down. That's how much we've come to depend on it.

We use the Internet to support vital parts of our lives like our jobs and our work. We use it for the not-so-vital but just as important personal aspects like keeping in touch with our friends and family.

The last time I blogged about this topic Universal Hub picked up Action Bob and I got slammed by the geeky little audience there because I was "whining"--their word, not mine--that Sue needed the Internet to find a location when she went out on the Hotline. The comments came fast and hard. Don't be an idiot and rely on Comcast for something as vital as your job. (Just accept mediocrity.) Get a GPS. (Invest in even more technology.) Get a map. (Get off the technology wagon immediately.) Get a life. (I'm not sure what that angry diatribe was about, considering it came from people who had no lives themselves except to use the Internet to post long-winded diatribes.)

I'll say it once, and I'll keep saying it. The service providers today, particularly ISPs but also cell phones and cable television, don't seem to realize or care that their services are more vital and important to us than they ever have been. And I'm not talking about the importance of watching the Super Bowl or American Idol. I'm talking about the dissemination of information in a democracy.

My cell phone provider, ATT, but it was Cingular at the time, actually ran an advertising campaign once that said, We have less dropped calls than the other guys." You're not supposed to have any dropped calls at all. What if a brain surgeon worked on that principle? I have fewer slip-ups than the other docs? And Comcast and ATT and all the rest aren't doing brain surgery.

I guess thank God for that.

When the Internet is about life and death...forget Comcast

It's one thing when your Internet connection is down and you can't shop on eBay. It's quite another when it affects a life and death situation. And it's maddening when you're dealing with Comcast.

Sue works for the state of Massachusetts in child protection. There are times when she'll get a call in the middle of the night and she has to go to an emergency. By emergency, I mean a 911 call where she'll meet the police and there could be alcohol, drugs, and guns involved. When this happens, the first thing she does is map Google the location where she has to go. As you can guess, most of these emergencies don't take place in the best of neighborhoods-- neighborhoods where you don't want to be driving around in the middle of the night asking for directions. Also, if she doesn't pull the location off the Internet, she has to drive to the local police department and get directions, which amounts to a significant loss of response time.

So try explaining this to Comcast.

Friday night that's exactly what happened. She got a call and when she Googled the Internet was down. A woman had been severely beaten and there were four children involved. The situation was so dangerous that at one point the responding officer considered drawing his firearm.

Today is Tuesday, and after about five lengthy phone calls to Comcast's customer service center in South Texas (Loredo) and after guarantees that the service would be fixed in 24 hours, we have is occasional uptime with the Internet that is obvious isn't a result of any work on Comcast's part. Even after I explained that lives were at risk.

All we kept getting were a lot of I'm sorries and I understand your frustration, responses that the customer service reps are taught to say.

What's worse is that the technicians in the Boston area lied about their response. I was told on Saturday night by a supervisor in Loredo that a technician would be at the house between noon and 4 o'clock. It's a Saturday on Labor Day weekend. Sue and I had things to do but we cancelled everything to be at the apartment when the technician arrived. No technician arrived and later than night during the number of phone calls I had with Loredo they said the technician posted that they called us and no one answered. No one called. My phone logs all my calls, both incoming and outgoing, and no one called from Comcast.

During one conversation with Loredo, a customer service rep told me that the Boston center said not to escalate the problem unless the situation changes. In other words, even though I clearly explained a number of times that this could be considered a life and death situation, the Boston office clearly didn't think so.

Unbelievable.

What Comcast, and I suspect other Internet providers don't understand is the nature of the Internet. Forget Sue's need for it, it is completely entwined in the fabric of people's lives.

Sue and I don't have a television. We get almost all of our news from the Internet. We follow the presidential elections on the Internet. We streamed Obama's speech the other night.

The Internet, for most of us, has replaced the post office, the bank, the telephone company--just about every service you can think of. We email and IM instead of writing letters. It's how we keep in touch. The old AT&T company never let phone connections go down. I can barely think of a time going without phone service unless under emergencies like the Blizzard of '78. The post office delivered mail through rain and sleet and snow. That's the attitude Comcast should take, but they don't.

And I am so opposed to government intervention into anything, but rather than worry about what Roger Clemens shot into his hiney, shouldn't Congress worry more about the business practices of something like Comcast and how it is negatively affecting our lives? There is a side of degregulation that is a wonderful thing. But there is also a part of it that allows organizations (financial institutions and communication companies come to mind) to engage in shoddy and unethical business practices.