Annoyed With Comcast
June 16, 2010 in Blogs
Yeah, I made that the title because I have complaints and I’m going to vent them; but before I do, let me post my excuse for posting.
Last night ended the Christian Gamers Guild study in II Corinthians, my present primary contribution as the group’s chaplain, although there are undoubtedly as many non-group members in the study as there are group members. This coming Sunday night we will begin work in Galatians, which makes now a good time to sign up because you can get the study of Paul’s earliest extant epistle from the beginning. More information is posted at the invitation page on my web site.
Now, as to Comcast, they claim that they have enhanced my extended basic service by giving me a spate of new channels. To do this, though, they have required me to install new digital decoders which have to be set to channels individually–which means that I can no longer program my DVD recorder to record programs on different channels while I am working, but must set the device to channel 3 and select the channel on the digital box.
I call that a reduction in service without a corresponding reduction in price. To my mind, the only advantage of cable over less expensive satellite options is that you can use cable-ready equipment directly on the line and then use all the wonderful options built into that equipment. That is no longer possible, and somehow Comcast doesn’t seem to understand that I, who watch maybe a dozen channels (USA, TNT, A&E, Spike, SciFi, Bravo TBS, NJN, FX, History, PBS, and once a year at New Years Eve whichever broadcast network station has the Times Square ball drop, in that order) consider the ability to program my own equipment far more important than whether they have added eight hundred other channels that I will not watch.
Complicating it, some of those channels are not coming through the digital adapter at this point–no TNT, and if I don’t have that working before Leverage premiers everyone is going to be in trouble. But somehow I don’t know that they care. They think they’ve improved service. I think they’ve made it worse. We’re probably going to fight about that for a while.
–M. J. Young
ComcastMark said on June 17, 2010
Hello there!
I work for Comcast and I was wondering if you might be interested in upgrading to one of our DVR. I have a DVR and it makes it so MUCH easier to record my favorite shows. If you’re interested, I can reach out to my regional contacts to see if we can have you try out our DVR free of charge for a few months.
You might be referring to the recent digital transition. If so the purpose of the digital migration is to create more space for new channels to come. There is a high demand for more HD channels and as a result, we are converting the analog channels to digital. Hence, the need for a converter. Analog channels take up a lot of space. For every analog channel, we can fit up to 12 digital channels or 2 to 3 HD channels. This is also the reason why a lot of companies are transferring analog channels to digital.
Anyway, I decided to reach out to help and I thought you might be interested in my help. Feel free to contact me. I’m here to help!
Mark Casem
Comcast Corp.
National Customer Operations
We_can_help@cable.comcast.com
M. J. Young said on June 17, 2010
Hey, Mark, thanks for the offer, and I’m going to get back to you by e-mail. There are a lot of reasons why those aren’t good answers for my situation, but I’ll discuss it with you by e-mail.
Thanks. I’m glad I was noticed by someone in the company; might be my complaints will reach someone.
–M. J. Young