Did You Know It's The Principle?

Did you know it's the principle?

Yesterday my husband and our neighbor were talking about all the trouble we have been having with our internet service. It came up about dropping it and looking for another provider. I said that is exactly what I don't understand. My neighbor put it just right for me to understand, "It's the principle", he said. It should have been done and done right months ago. Yes, we have wanted to drop Comcast, but then they would never have to come fix it and make it right. It is the principle of them doing the right thing that matters now.

As an update, a temporary fix was put on again yesterday (at least this time they were up front about it being temporary!) and a new line should be in place within a week. I hope that will be the case, after all, it's the principle!

Do You Know Why My Blogging Has Lagged?

Did you know why my blogging has lagged?

Yes, I am busy and don't have time to do the blogging the way I'd like. But the real main reason that I don't blog every day or two is because we still cannot keep an internet connection! It is unbelievable to me that a company the size of Comcast cannot maintain it's service in a continuous fashion. They were at our house on Thursday and Friday. It worked for Saturday. It has not worked since Sunday. They were out to our house yesterday. They do not know what is wrong. Every single time we call they can do nothing but send out a technician. We have to start at square one with each call. Then the tech can fiddle around or put in a work order for a line tech. My neighbor asked the tech yesterday to please request that they put in a whole new line-which they supposedly did a couple of months ago. It is beyond frustrating. I really am suspecting we are on Candid Camera or they are just playing a game with us in some way. It works for a little while, then goes out for days and no one can tell us why! Though it is getting in the way of blogging, what frustrates me to a greater extent is our inability to access information, shop, and the kids to do their school work. Internet access is basically mandatory these days for students. If you don't have it at home, they must go to the library or a friend's house to complete assignments. And worse is when you think you have it at home and cannot access it!

Did You Know There Is One Lady at Comcast Who Has Helped Us?

Did you know there is one lady at Comcast who has helped us?

I do just want to state for the record that one of the supervisors at Comcast has been responsive to us. Her name is Tanesha and she has returned calls and done what she can to help resolve our situation. I just wanted to be fair to her for her efforts.

There was actually one other customer support staff who really tried to help my husband a few weeks ago, but you know they can't do much. And one of the techs who has been here more than once, Anthony, hates coming back here. He said it makes him look bad and he doesn't like that. (Getting it fixed would really help him to look good!) So for what it's worth, out of four aggravating, frustrating, maddening months of problems, there are a couple of folks who are at least trying to do what they can...

Did You Know We Are Still Having Connection Problems?

Did you know we are still having connection problems?

At the moment, our internet connection is working. The time it works is about equivalent to or less than the amount of time it is out. We have been using Comcast since they took over for Roadrunner. We have not been really happy with their service at all. You can read back through my old posts to get some background as to why.

We continue to have problems. No one knows what the problem is and we continue to have "band aid efforts" applied until the next outage! For example, yesterday there were three line techs at our left side neighbor's house. They are scheduled for our right side neighbor's house today. And our house on Friday. Uh, this seems foolish to me. Why not take care of it all at once???!!! I know there are some there who have tried, and some who don't care, and one co-supervisor who even said that the customer support tech lied to me!

Needless to say, the loss of connection has indeed been an interruption to lifestyle. Yes, we love to play on the computer, but we also have necessary things to do online as well. For example, my son's AP History course has a mandatory website student's must access regularly. This is difficult when our internet is out. He has gone to friend's and neighbor's houses to get his homework done. We try to utilize the library when possible, but that is hard to do. My son also writes articles for a community newsletter. He writes them and then emails them in. This is also impossible with no connection. This last time he was scrambling around for some sort of memory card or flash drive so he could take his saved article somewhere to email it in!

My husband has been prodding me again and again to continue to blog about Comcast's poor quality and inept service. So, this is the latest vent!

Did You Know Why We Haven't Dropped Comcast?

Did you know why we haven't dropped Comcast?

We have actually tried! If you read the last post, you will see why we are so frustrated and want to drop the Comcast service. We cannot keep an internet connection. This has been going on since the beginning of September!

I guess it was in October when I told my husband I wanted to try AT&T. He talked to them, since that is who our cell phones are with. He was told that their internet service is not available everywhere. And in the town we live, there has been a deal made with Verizon, so AT&T won't be coming in here!

So we kept waiting, being assured time and again that Comcast had us "fixed up for good". Yesterday my husband talked to Verizon. He was told that the speed for the regular package was "1" and the upgrade was "3". Comcast is "4", so not too different. But when my husband looked at the info online, he found that that the speed on the upgrade was only 1.5. That's a big difference so he called back to confirm. Well, the "3" is "in general" but the speed really depends on how far away you live. He told them that is false advertisement and we are not interested.

So, we are still waiting on Comcast to resolve the issue. They have been responsive, it's just that they don't know what's wrong and cannot get it fixed. At least they have not charged us in all this time...

Did You Know We are Unlucky With Computers?

Did you know we are unlucky with computers?

I don't what the deal is, but we have had really bad luck with our computers this year. It all started when Comcast took over RoadRunner. We had trouble with Comcast starting in Feb. By Sept. we had put in eight calls to them for trouble. Maybe not a huge deal, but it's at least once a month that there was trouble. Then, since just before the hurricane, we have had unstable internet connections. We have not paid Comcast since September and will not be paying for this last week either. They have no idea what the problem is (it's going on with our neighbors too, so it's not on our end.) Anyway, so right now I've got a connection for the first time in two days.

And, in the miidst of all that, my daughter's laptop gave out. We had even gone so far as to get their old school desks (ok, they are really office furniture computer desks) out of the attic for her to have someplace to set it up in the living room. And then, it fried. The internal circuit board shorted out. The guy said it would cost too much to fix it. So, we are just biding our time with our computer with intermittent internet service...

Did You Know We Finally Got Our Internet Fixed?

Did you know we finally got our internet fixed?

I know, I may be jinxing myself by saying that! We heard that about a week ago, a debris truck had clipped the cable line on one of the streets causing an outage of all cable services. This lasted several days, but then Comcast seemingly thought all was working again (even though several of us kept calling!) Apparently, one side of the street had been fixed but the other side still wasn't working. When a tech came out to my neighbor's house, he walked up and down the street and finally found that the line had been pulled away from the pole behind someone's house. He called some helpers and they had it fixed by that evening! Now all seems to be working fine and we didn't have to switch carriers, buy memory, or upgrade our computer!

Did You Know We Still Have Intermittent Service?

Did you know we still have intermittent service?

Our internet service is still coming and going, mostly going. I was finally able to talk to someone today. Things are still in repair from the recent hurricane. There are so many lines that are having to be replaced with brand new ones. We do understand it and have tried to be patient. It is just that we don't get very reliable service from Comcast anyway. And when I need to do work online, and my kids have homework to do using the internet, it gets rather frustrating. I understand that we are not the only people in this situation and that there are many folks who are much worse off than we are. But there was a certain commercial that caught my attention tonight. Verizon claims that they have all lines in working order and have since the hurricane passed. I am going to have to check out their website!