Comcast = Chaos
Written: Nov 01 '04 (Updated Nov 24 '04)
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Pros: Are you kidding? Comcast is infuriating!!!!
Cons: Chaos, conflicting answers, bungled records, waste of my time dealing with these bozoes.
The Bottom Line: If you can get satellite service, do it. I had no choice.
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| dave_corbitt's Full Review: Comcast |
Here is my tale of woe dealing with being a new customer with Comcast.
I moved to a new house on October 12, 2004. In my old house, I had DirecTV as my signal provider for HD and SD video feeds. My home theater includes a front screen projector capable of 720P display. Once I got to the new house, DirecTV sent a rep over on Saturday October 23, 2004 to install a new dish but when the technician arrived, he declared it would be impossible to receive a signal with all the tall trees in the neighborhood. So I called Comcast, the local cable company, that same day and scheduled installation of an HD receiver with premium HD and Digital programming and a second feed to an ordinary SD TV for cable ready analog programming. They told me I would be installed the following Saturday, October 30, 2004.
When I moved on October 12th, I had arranged with Verizon to have my DSL account moved to the new address. They told me DSL could not be enabled until 10 days after moving in and having the phone line active. So I patiently waited for October 22nd for my DSL to be activated and I could get back online. On October 22, 23, and 24 I still had no DSL so I called Verizon on October 25th and they told me I was too far from the central office to get DSL. I was floored. Why couldn't they tell me that weeks ago when I first inquired about moving my service? I then called Comcast right away and asked them to add high speed cable internet to my installation order for that Saturday, October 30th. They assured me it would be done.
Saturday October 30th arrived and the cable installer showed up in the morning. He started work on the HD receiver. I asked him about the internet connection and he said there was nothing on his work order for that. I told him I had called it in and was told the installation would be for both TV's and internet all at once. He called his boss and they told him he couldn't do the internet connection as there was no record of the order. I was taken aback by this but told him to do what he could and get the television cables installed.
Once the HD Receiver was in and enabled from the office, I assisted the installer in setting up the HD Receiver to be configured to match my system. He had no experience with these things so I read the book and scrolled through the menus to set up the outputs to conform to my projector. We set the DVI output for 720P, 4:3 override OFF, TV shape to 16:9. The cable box would not output a DVI signal. So we tried another box from his truck and it did the same thing. I then took the DVI cable and connected it to my old Satellite receiver and used it as a cable decoder and was perfectly able to feed a DVI signal to the projector. This proved the projector and DVI cable were both OK. Further phone calls confirmed that the DVI output of the Motorola HD receiver is not implemented and may not be for several months. Very disappointing.
The installer finished up, installed the SD cable to my ordinary TV and left. I called Comcast to get to the bottom of the internet stuff and after being routed around from person to person finally got someone who told me to go to the local Comcast office and get an SIK (Self Install Kit) kit to install the internet connection myself. I was told I would save $49 for the installation if I did it myself. That was the first I heard there was a charge for this. I had been told it was free by others at Comcast. I drove 30 minutes to the local store that I was told had these in stock. Once there, I was told by the cashier that they could not give me an SIK because the work order was not fully processed. I then went in to the parking lot and called Comcast on my cellphone to find out what was going on. I had been told by one person to pick up the kit and now I was being told I couldn't have it after a half hour drive. Once I got through to Comcast again, I made sure I was scheduled for another visit by a tech to install the internet connection on this coming Saturday (November 6th). That person told me there was no installation charge for internet added to my newly installed Premium and HD cable service and that I was entitled to a $20 discount due to all the aggravation I had gone through. At the rates I normally charge, my time was worth a lot more than $20 but I let that one go. I felt I had finally gotten someone who may know what is going on. Time will tell.
I am totally flabbergasted by this entire chain of events; the incorrect information given by some at Comcast that was then contradicted by others, the chaos of the system, the lack of education and experience of the installer, the lack of hardware that works properly, and the amount of my time I had to waste to try to sort all this out. I wonder if anything I'm told by Comcast personnel can be believed and if my DVI output will ever work. I am appalled by how my internet connection order was so screwed up and never documented on the work order. Where I live, I have no choice if I want high speed internet and HD video service. My over the air reception is awful due to the hilly terrain, satellite service is no viable due to all the trees, and DSL service is not available due to the distance from the central office. So my only choice is Comcast or nothing. And Comcast is a mess!!
And that was the end of my review on November 1, 2004. It is now November 23, 2004 and I am still having troubles with Comcast. Here's chapter 2 of this incredibly convoluted mess. What follows is a major revision to this review added on November 23, 2004.
A follow visit was scheduled on November 6th to get the cable modem hooked up for internet. The installer arrived and declared he knew nothing about my computer (a garden variety eMac running OS 10.3.5). So he basically took the modem out of the box and connected it up then left. He didn't configure anything on my machine and said I was on my own. I called Comcast tech support and they said since I had a Mac system I couldn't expect them to know how to configure it. What? I told them when I ordered the service what I had and like the naive fool I apparently am, expected someone competent to arrive and do what was discussed. I finally got my machine running and my email configured. There were troubles from the energy saver settings conflicting with the open line of the modem but one of my IT guys at work told me what to do and it was fixed the next day, no thanks to Comcast.
Now my issue was back to the DVI port on the HD box not being enabled. I am a pro who works in a mastering house for HD video and know what HD is supposed to look like. And I know what DVI feeding my projector can look like since I had that with DirecTV in my previous house. Using analog RGB cables to feed the projector is a lossy way to view HD. Even with professional video cable (I;m using 1694 coax) there are inevitable losses due to the cheap D-A circuitry in the cable receiver/tuner. I can see a noticeable reduction in fine detail and after all, HD is all about detail. So I got back on the phone and arranged to have another tech come out with a working box that has a working DVI output. They told me it would be while and the only way to get a working DVI output is to wait for the HD-DVR box which is due any day and would be guaranteed to have a good DVI output. I figured, "What the heck, it's just a few dollars more per month, why not?"
So I got a call promising to deliver this new toy on Saturday November 20. The guy was scheduled to arrive between 11am and 1pm. I was psyched. So I started working around the house not wanting to miss the cable guy. I was painting the dining room in my new place. 11 comes along, no cable guy, then 12, 1, 2, still no cable guy. While I was on the phone at 2:30pm to Comcast asking where their man is, the guy shows up on my door step. He proceeded to put in the new box. It was the same guy who installed my first HD cable box so I was not feeling too good about any of this. He hooked up the wires and plugged it in. And guess what? No DVI output!!!! I was burning inside. I was ready to rumble. This was just too much. I told the guy he better call his people at Comcast and straighten this out or else he better get that box out of my house. The only reason I wanted the more expensive box was to finally get my DVI cable working so I can see good HD pictures in full detail. I walked out of the room and went back to painting. The cable guy came to see me about a half hour later saying "no good, DVI doesn't work".
I told him to leave and I would call Comcast on Monday to sort it out.
On Monday (yesterday) I called my contact man at Comcast and he was all apologetic saying it should have worked and is my DVI cable any good? Of Course it's good!!!!!!! I plugged it back in to my old DirecTV receiver and plugged in the roof antenna to the DirecTV box and I can get one channel off the air in glorious full res HDTV via the DVI cable. He then promised he would get his best guy from Comcast, not some incompetent outside subcontractor, to come over on Tuesday night to do it all properly and check everything out. I said fine, I'm home by 6:30. He said the guy would be there between 7 and 9pm. So that was tonight. And guess what? The guy showed up around 5 pm, over an hour before I get home, said he left a message on my phone that no one was home. I had a message on my phone but I'll be damned if I can understand it. It's a young woman with the worst case of bad pronunciation I've ever heard. She was completely incomprehensible. Now that's the kind of person I would choose to leave phone messages, uh huh. If it weren't so pathetic I would think it was funny. But it is pathetic and I am completely at their mercy. There is no other way to get HD service in my neighborhood except through this incredibly incompetent service provider. And here it is over three weeks since my original scheduled visit to install everything, 4 visits by one boneheaded tech after another, and I am still not getting what they advertise and offer as a service I want and am willing to pay for!!!!
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 100/month
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Epinions.com ID:
dave_corbitt
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Member: Dave Corbitt
Location: North Central NJ
Reviews written: 65
Trusted by: 111 members
About Me:
Home theater addict, sand sculptor, gardening, travel, video engineer in high end post
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