And cutting up cardboard boxes........oh, well.......
Monday Comcast came by to install their "Xfinity" service. After spending FOUR HOURS on the phone with Customer "Service", she finally got the order unscrewed to what we wanted. We wanted one DVR, and three "regular" boxes. Naturally, when the installer shows up he brings four "regular" boxes, and NO DVR. Of course, my wife freaks out after spending all that time on the phone a week or so ago with Customer "Service".
I'd listened in on the phone calls, and I have to say, Comcast has the WORST Customer "Service" I've ever dealt with. No wonder people refer to them as "ComCRAP".
The wife freaked because both phone reps told her that the install Techs did NOT carry "extra" boxes, or "spare" boxes to use in case a customer changed their mind.
BALDERDASH!
EVERY service truck that does installs carries a supply of boxes for just this purpose. It costs so much "just to roll a truck" in these services that to have a call-back, or have to "roll a truck again" to correct an order, replace a brand-new box that croaked, that to save money, they always carry an inventory of boxes.
The Tech was great at listening to my wife, and called an inside number and got the order exactly how we wanted it in about 20 minutes. Kudos to the sharp service Tech!
Then she wanted all four cable outlets moved, which I had warned her might be an extra charge, and they did it!
They pulled all-new cable from the service drop to the house, and installed 4 new outlets, with a female F connector and nice wall plate.
Except for the fact that we now have 4 new cables runs on the exterior of the house, very neatly done, but an external run, still, we now have four professional-looking wall plates with a cable jack on them, exactly where my wife wanted them.
Like I said, great job, guys!
And of course I had fun talking tech with them, asking them questions that they'd never heard a customer talking about, and using the correct terms, and getting intelligent answers from the service Techs!
So even though it took all freaking day, we now have (allegedly) 150MB Internet, so-so HDTV service, and VOIP phones.
The Internet speed is supposed to be 200MB (provisioned), but it's only chugging along at about 35MB speeds. It's most likely that the work order to provision this new service address hasn't been issued, or hasn't been acted on. If I don't see any improvement by Monday I'm going to squawk it.
Today we went out and dropped a bundle on new furniture. Got a killer-looking 7 piece dining room set:
Wednesday the new washer and dryer get delivered and installed, and I have to run back to "The Country House" and pick up some of my stuff and make sure the little apartment we were using is empty.
3" of snow last night, and the streets and sidewalks were clear before noon! Had to knock a ton of snow off the Jeep to drive it, but the wife just loves seeing all the snow.
Wonder how she'll feel about the middle of March.......
The tree guys came by Monday and picked up the last of the logs left from the cottonwood. They had some sections that were just too big to move by hand, even if it was just to move them enough to saw them up.
They brought the Bobcat!
Which is still sitting alongside the house.........hmmmmmmm
As soon as DIL's brother gets back from hunting, he'll come over and use the Bobcat to help yank the old fence posts and set the new ones with the fence guy.
So it's been busy, but we're rolling right along with what needs to get finished.
Saturday I'll be playing radio as much as I can, and I'll be trying to contact my buddies back on the Iowa who will be running a special event for Verteran's Day.
More to come, I'm sure
Yes their service lacks considerably. The service tech was ok. I mentioned the mess I was dealing with and he advised to forget the 800 number call center as much as was possible and personally go to the local office and we'd get much better service.
ReplyDeleteAs far as equipment issues... Our new tv system would freeze and become useless. He ran some analyzer and said the line noise had a high noise floor.
I figured he'd pit some sort of signal booster in. What he did was put new ends on all the cable lines involved. He went out and disconnected all the outlets in the house not currently being used saying that the extras were acting like a big antenna pumping spurious noise into the 2 outlets I actually use. As a ham it made sense but now all the other outlets are not hooked up. It worked.
I'm not overly happy with the service I got all in all, but I hate the satellite systems even more.
If the noise floor is too high, it means there's other problems with the system. Adding and amp would bring up the signal AND the noise, so it's a no-win situation.
ReplyDeleteSince the basement here is fully finished, there's no way to access the various cable/plumbing/power runs; all those things are covered by the ceiling in the basement, and I'm not about to start ripping up drywall for new cable runs! I'm just hoping I can find an easy way to get 240 down to the new radio room for my amps.
I just went thru a new service comcast data and video install on behalf of someone else...
ReplyDeleteOn the day of install I was getting <10 down and ~3 up and the service was supposed to be 100 down and 10-20 up. Nothing the tech did (and he was pretty good) or checked (startup script on my customer supplied modem) made any difference. He tried to upsell on a service visit, which I declined. Next day, (and after a re-boot) I was getting the defined rates. No idea if the problem was local, or fixed by my re-boot. It's been working well so far.
I do prefer speedof.me to speedtest.net, as they don't have any connection to comcast. I'm always suspicious of using the vendor provided tool, and suspect local caching, and other tricks.
Hopefully you get the speed you're paying for.
And hopefully you get on the air soon!
nick
The laptop has been rebooted nightly, and I just did a power cycle on the cable modem, and still stuck at ~30MB.
DeleteOne of the install Techs told me about the same thing regarding Customer "Service". He said to go to the Comcast/Xfinity store in the mall to handle any requests for a service change/swap a box/etc. And he said to do the live chat through the website to handle other issues, and suggested joining the forums.
Visiting the Centuria store (I-25 and Hwy 34) has been my best way of getting %#$^&&Comcast/Infinity issue resolved.
DeleteThe install Techs told me the same thing. DO NOT call Comcrap Customer "Service" because they'll either screw up you request, lose it, or both!
DeleteYay, you're getting there. Like your new dining set, a lot, and that chair isn't half bad either.
ReplyDeleteThanks for keeping us updated.
Delivered, assembled, and placed today and yep...it's nice.
DeleteReally solid, too. No particle board junk, solid wood with a veneer inlay on the top.
Haven't tried the chair yet, maybe later tonight.
Yep, getting there! :-)
ReplyDeleteSlowly I turned, step by step.....
Delete