Glad I've only got Comcast cable and not internet/phone service here in Denver

[XOKCowboy]

My cable just took a dump so I called and it's a system wide outage of cable/phone/internet for Boulder, Arvada and Westminster. That's around 200,000 ppl without service of some kind. Glad I've got DSL. Dontcha love monopolies?

[JenniferJuniper]

1. I'm stuck with Comcast

and my internet connection goes down almost nightly. Sometimes for hours at a time.

[XOKCowboy]

5. A lot of my friends told me to get a cable modem... Great bundle prices, etc

I just knew that my cable goes out more than my phone. Besides I've got very decent speed with my DSL at a decent price.

[magellan]

11. btw, I was expressing the same view to hubby yesterday

I'd LOVE to go to Vonage to save money, but Comcast just isn't reliable enough for us to risk axing our land line. Without that and internet access we can't run our business. We keep a dial-up account with PeoplePC for just such occasions.

:mad:

[orleans]

8. when mine does that i get on my cell phone and tell them i want credit for it.

do that--it knocks some money off the bill--and why the hell should we be paying for their fuckups anyway?

edit: even if it is not their fault, we shouldn't have to pay to have no service.

[HCE SuiGeneris]

2. I'm sure they'll prorate the service for the time it was out...

bwhahahahahaha :hide:

[XOKCowboy]

4. Oh yea I'm just holding my breath...

I'm sure THAT will happen.

[magellan]

6. You have to call them

Every time you lose your connection for other than regular maintenance reasons, make a note of how long it's down. When it's back up, call Comcast and tell them you'd like a refund for the time. (I don't bother them with anything less than half an hour, but that's up to you.) I ALWAYS get a refund.

If you don't take money out of them they have no reason to improve their service, because they sure as heck don't have a lot of competition.

[XOKCowboy]

7. We're at 2 hrs and counting...

I'll be calling. For what they charge I expect to get every minute.

[magellan]

9. They may credit you the entire day if it's over 2-3 hours

Which works out to $1.43 if the figures I just found from 2005 are correct. Last time I called, we got a couple of days refund for two days of on again/off again connections.

If you haven't done so already, phone them and see if their "tech services" know about your outage. If it isn't a known area-wide outage you'll get a recording walking you through a reset of your modem and/or router plus computer, and you should do this before talking to a live person. Then let them know your service is out so they log it. That way, when you call for a refund, they'll have your report of non-service on your account and won't have room to wiggle out of it.

Even if they say "We'll need to send a tech to your house", agree to it and ask if you can get a refund. And call for a refund each day your service is out or flaky.

[XOKCowboy]

12. Yeah I did that.

The operator was really cool. She logged my complaint, said it looks like about 3 or 4 in the morning before it's back up. We had a very nice chat.

[magellan]

13. Cool

Most of them are pretty nice, they just can't do much to help usually.

You on dial-up now? I remember when 56kbps seemed fast. Hope your service is back up soon. :hi:

[XOKCowboy]

14. Nah I have DSL

I'm watching The Funk Brothers DVD. I'm groovin' on Motown. It's all good.

[magellan]

15. Yeah!

They backed some great tunes from my youth. Motown's what I listen to when I want to chill and I'm not stuck on swing and big band.

Enjoy your night, mine's over. I can hear hubby snoring in the front room! lol

[Ichingcarpenter]

3. It went out all the time when I lived there

It happened like every other week


I got direcTV and never looked back and hardly loss my signal
except during major storms but everything else was out too.

I found it cheaper and more reliable.

[Dumak]

10. Cable is inherently unreliable

*very* susceptible to moisture, and problems are difficult to debug. USA is gradually switching to fiber optic, which is much faster and more reliable - typically 15-30M bits/sec. The Japanese have had it for years. Verizon is now installing it in big cities, where it is profitable. With a little bit of government influence it could completely replace our copper telephone cable, and serve smaller areas as well. It's probably much more difficult to wire-tap than copper cable, but I'm sure the fascist Republicans will have that figured out for us.