Sunday, March 29, 2009

Comcast sucks

So this was the plan for Sunday (It is 6:00pm as I write this):

1. Write a post for the sock contest in the morning while drinking my coffee.

2. At 2:00pm, I was going to a local establishment to watch the UNH/BU NCAA Hockey Northeast Regional Final. Since Comcast is a money hungry, blood sucking, greed worshiping corporation I can not get ESPNU on my cable system at home.

In reality:

1. I woke up this morning and put on the coffee. I couldn't get a wireless internet connection on my laptop. I went to the cable modem and found it not functioning properly. After 15 minutes on the phone with a Comcast customer service rep, she schedules a service call for today between 1pm and 5pm. Therefore, no morning post and no going out to watch the hockey game.

2. Here's the deal with ESPNU. ESPN would like it provided with basic cable subscriptions just like their ESPN2, ESPN Classic, and ESPN News channels. Comcast refuses to air ESPNU unless it can put it on a higher, added charge tier of sports programming. They are doing the same thing with the NFL Network. Effective May 1st, NFL Network is giving up and pulling its feed to Comcast so it can not be added to the up charge sports tier. On the internet side of the world, Comcast also does not allow access for its subscribers to ESPN360. On the bright side there are about 20 shopping channels, 5 religious channels, and about 10 channels dedicated to Spanish, Korean, Chinese, Vietnamese, and Indian programming.

3. The repair man doesn't get here until 6:00PM, one hour late from the 1pm-5pm window. 6:41pm, back online. I read that BU scored with 15 seconds left in the game to win 2-1. Too bad I missed that dramatic finish.

Thanks a lot Comcast... you suck. You've effectively ruined my only day off this week. Now that your flunky is done fixing whatever was wrong with my internet I'm surfing over to Direct TV to check out their pricing. They do have ESPNU, the NFL Network, and access to watch all of the Red Sox games this season. The next step will be checking out alternative high speed internet providers. I'm done with you Comcast.

7 comments:

Merely Me said...

But soon it will be your birthday!

Suzanne said...

My heart bleeds for you because I was without Comcast nearly 48 hours recently. As you know everything in the house is Comcast, so it isn't funny. Rob actually just had the phone service removed because we couldn't risk being without EVERYTHING! Let me know what you think about Direct TV. I hear you may have trouble when the wind blows.

Okay, so great story, amusing, terrific, but when the hell do we get to vote?

XO Blottie

P.S. Love that Comcast missed their 1-5 window. Predictable. Funny how if you miss a payment they're on you within minutes.

ComcastCares1 said...

I am glad to know that you are now back online. Please let me know if you need further assistance. Also, I apologize for the missed service call. I will reach out to my contacts to make sure that your account is issued compensation.

In regards to the sports channels, we do not at this time carry ESPNU and we are still negotiating with NFL. We are all looking forward to positive outcome of the negotiation. Hopefully, the negotiations are finalized as soon as possible.

If you are interested in my assistance, please send the phone number associated with the account to the email provided below.

Suzanne – I also apologize for the trouble. Please feel free to contact me if you need further assistance.

Best Regards,


Mark Casem
Comcast Corp.
National Customer Operations
We_Can_Help@cable.comcast.com

just bob said...

Unbelievable... Comcast actually employs a blogger to respond to criticism. I'm really kind of impressed by it. It's interesting, my blog has been visited today by Comcast (naturally), the NFL in New York (because I mentioned the NFL Network), and ESPN (because I mentioned ESPN networks).

It just goes to show you how progressive businesses are responding to blogs and bloggers. Some are paying attention... especially if you link to them.

Ree said...

We call it Comcant. ;-) And had the same thing happen with the Big 10 Network. Eventually someone relented and we could watch ourselves actually attending U of M basketball games.


There may be hope yet.

Anonymous said...

Comcast is terrible. I had Direct TV in the past and will go back to them. The service was never a problem and it is affordable. I never had problems in storms or any adverse weather. I am wondering why Comcast gets to have a cable monopoly when monopolies are supposedly illegal.

Anonymous said...

Why I hate Comcast (seriously)!: http://tinyurl.com/n5l9ao