EX-TELCO Loc: Belen,New Mexico

This is more or less in response to Power Failure from jerryc41 on 16 Dec. On 14 Dec I had a 2 hour power outage, I do have backup power for my Modem and Router. But the carrier from Comcast was down also.
So after reading jerryc41’s post I thought I might try to get Comcast to repair the problem. (not an easy task)
I started with a Comcast forum, I found out the person that answered my request for help knew what I was asking about and even sent a picture of the equipment that would not be working right.
I then called Comcast repair ( no fun there) After the 3rd call I hit a nerve, I got a Tk # number and in less then an hour had a call back from a nice person that wasn’t sure what I was talking about, but she found someone in her department that did know and will dispatch a cable person to repair the problem.
I just want to Thank jerryc41 for the post, that got me moving. And to let people on this forum know that the people that work on providing Internet service are doing a good job. At least from where I sit.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

That's a surprising result from my power failure.

One comment about a UPS. When the power goes out, the UPS beeps every few seconds. When you have four of them in the house, it can be annoying. Luckily, there is an OFF switch.

Julian Loc: Sarasota, FL

UPSs are not designed to go out silently... they alert as to your next action: shut down your devices... or, get a portable generator. It works.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

"Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light."

Dylan Thomas

When power goes out, all noise in the house stops, and everything goes dark. Even the dogs notice the change and start barking. That little annoying beep is redundant. :D

I ordered a Kill a Watt with battery backup.

dljen Loc: Central PA

This is honestly the first post I've ever seen praising Comcast - glad you have it worked out. :)

marcomarks Loc: Ft. Myers, FL

I agree. From my experiences, Comcast's phone people are some of the stupidest I've ever experienced. You say your problem, they've never experienced any of this themselves, they pick two or three key words from you, flip to a page that describes a problem that isn't yours, and then start testing "from their end" which means they have just verified that you have a problem - which you knew already. Big whoop.

Then they start giving you instructions to test everything of yours by powering down and unplugging cables of all of the stuff which was working fine, you didn't change anything, and their system outside the home is what quit. Then you wait while they choose what day their people are going to come out in a truck but you are told clearly more than once that if the guy finds out it's in your home and not their system that you'll be paying blah blah blah amount per hour for them to come inside. And you're supposed to be able to hang out all day from morning to night and cancel your workday for them to come whenever it's convenient for them.

I've found that it was much easier and far less stressful to let the Internet lay there dead for a couple or three hours until dozens have called in to complain, then it gets fixed, the system comes back up, and there was no stress on my part.

The customer service reps who are supposed to know about your package costs, etc. also are typically clueless. I was sold 50mb/s service for a decent price. The upgrade was to be done with nobody coming out. Ta-da! Finally something easy. I waited for 4 days and was still getting 25mb service. I called back and asked why. This rep said, "Let's test your modem and see what's going on." She then says, "Oh, I see you are using a Motorola blah, blah, blah modem." I said, "True. That's what I've had for years with you." She says, "Well you have to go buy a new Motorola blah, blah, blah that can handle twice as much data or rent one from us before you can use the 50mb service." The first rep didn't have a clue about that but the second one did. I went and bought that modem at Best Buy. I came back and installed it. Did the online stuff I was supposed to do to have the higher speed start. it didn't. I called. This one was clueless again. She set up an appointment for a trucky guy to come the next day. He did. He said that if my house was 2,000 feet north of where I was located it would be fine but I didn't have fiber optic on my street, only coax, so 50mb service wasn't available in my neighborhood and likely wouldn't be for at least 18 months when they expected to start a big upgrade program. Nobody at Comcast customer service knew that either apparently.

I won't even talk about their overcharging me for years when they have discounts they can give for bundling and such that I wasn't getting but should have been.

Then when I called them to move to a different location 7 miles away, their system said they had service where I was moving to but when a trucky guy came to install me they don't actually have service there. It was planned during the initial area setup but never was completed when the housing collapse happened in 2008 - yet all the addresses in our area were already installed in their database and showing availability. Meanwhile they cut off all my mailboxes immediately upon the last day of service at my old location instead of leaving them run for 30 days during the transition.

The company I was with up in Toledo still hasn't cut off my mailboxes after 4 years of my living down here so why did Comcast have to chop me off the same day as the installer was still at my new location telling me I couldn't have service from them anymore? I called and they said I'd have to sign up for service at $39.95 a month to re-establish my mailboxes and my mail might not actually be there. I couldn't get Internet from them at my location so what was the $39.95 per month plus taxes for. They didn't know. Nice.

Now I get Comcast mail pieces all the time about their X1 and alarm systems and safety monitoring systems, special discount deals, etc. and I don't have access to any of it but they still send it practically every other day. Why? Fools!