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He doesn't even have Comcast service and already he has problems with them
By adamg on Sat, 10/26/2013 - 8:57pm
Spatch moved from a Somerville street where he was quite happy with RCN to a street where he could only sign up with Comcast. So he did. And promptly set a land-speed record for learning to dislike a company.
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Comments
Wait until their equipment
Wait until their equipment box arrives with 2x the equipment they never ordered and has to be returned. Comcast will then charge for a lost remote or some other bullshit which never really happened. Along with a change of service fee for the service never requested but added anyway and rental free prorated for the time it took you to return the equipment that was never requested in the first place.
/thank government sanctioned monopolies for this crap.
How is it a government
How is it a government sanctioned monopoly if there are at least two ISPs in Somerville but one, rcn in this case, doesn't serve this guys street. That seems like a case of a corporation not being required to service every part of a city, not the government saying only comcast can serve his street. Or where are you getting your facts that the government is saying omly one ISP can service his street?
City government contracts...
... with cable operations could require them to cover the entire city. Somerville's doesn't, alas.
I believe this is why the heavily advertised Verizon FIOS seems never to have materialized.
With respect to Verizon FIOS
With respect to Verizon FIOS , I was in the situation awaiting them , the fiber-optics were already on the poles , but there was a halt to getting home service. My understanding of this halt , having read press releases ect ect was that Verizon wanted to change the state regulations where they had to negotiate on a town or city by town or city basis with the respective local authorities , thus getting jacked up by piss ants for goodie externalities in each town. Verizon wanted one state approval, and by pass the piss antery. They have held steadfast, no new FIOS , a moratorium . Cant say how I blame them ( piss antery , there is one town fighting the railroad on definition of rail spurs not being part of rail system ,wasting barrister fees and impeding constructive private sector economy growth ) .
RCN and Somerville
My understanding, backed up by Tom Champion back when he worked for the city, is that Somerville *does* require all cable TV providers to serve every residential address in the city. I suggest that Spatch check with the city communications office first thing on Monday.
FCC, state, and local
FCC, state, and local regulations make it difficult for up-start cable providers to get into the game and have allowed what little competition existed to often be bought out by larger companies. Most countries in Europe have a dozen competing providers. Many of which are come into existence within the past 15 years. Ditto for cell phone providers.
The companies know they have a near monopoly and there is significant price fixing between supposed competitors in regional markets.
RCN coverage
We spoke with a very helpful RCN rep over the weekend, who couldn't figure out why our residence was listed as unserviceable. Being the weekend, she investigated as much as she could and then sent a note to the technicians when she got as far as a customer service rep can go on their own.
The best anyone can guess is that A. we live on a short cross-street between two major roads, B. they laid fiber optic down along both major roads and hoped they could throw lines to the houses on our street caught in the middle, and C. oops they can't quite reach our house in the middle.
B technically covers the "We're covering as much of the city as we can" argument, but man.
I'm not about to ask RCN to dig up an entire street just to lay fiber optic line for our house, but if they can somehow hook up a line across from either of the two streets, we're game.
Verizon is also an option on this street but only their DSL, not FiOS. The monthly price quoted was higher than my RCN bill or the quoted Comcast bill, so we went with Comcast. If we were in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, I believe my face would be melting right now.
the racist part of his rant....
ALSO RCN WHY YOU NO LIKE OUR STREET IS NICE STREET IS SMALL STREET YOU COME OVER BRING SERVICE TO OUR STREET WE WILL PAY YOU MONEY EVERY SINGLE MONTH YES PLEASE sure does seem awfully similar to "ME LOVE YOU LONG TIME" type racist dribble
Not racism - LOLCATS
Has nothing to do with stereotypes and everything to do with LOLCATS and Y U NO cant.
Awwww...
It's so cute when older people try to Do The Internets.
Just what do you consider ....
... "older"?
Being mid-30's myself
I'm no spring chicken, but even I understood a nearly decade-old meme in that language. I would assume anyone who is too old to understand this basic part of the internet is "old" no matter what their chronological age.
Similarly, if someone started complaining about these horrible cat owners who forced their cat to play the piano and how you're calling the MSPCA on them... They're Old People of the Internet, regardless of their age.
olds on the Internets
I'm approaching Jack Benny's age and have been on the Internet since at least 1990. You watch the memes come and go like so many leaves in the stream.
(Just not on Comcast's stream. The equipment sat somewhere all weekend and was sent to UPS today just before EOB. We've got the tracking number.)
All you need to know about Comcast Customer Service
Go to the Sherman Street Comcast office in Cambridge. It's set up like a Check Cashing store in a tough neighborhood--double thick glass, tiny speaking apertures, video monitoring. A couple of poor, miserable bastards sitting behind the protection. Two seconds, and you know that every customer who ever walks into the place has pure murder on his or her mind, given how they've been (mis)treated and abused by the company.
They really ought to be run out of town, instead of sanctioned as the only provider.
Probably murder isn't the reason
The RCN office in Hyde Park is exactly the same. I suspect it has more to do with protecting all the expensive converter boxes they have out back from theft than protecting workers from an outraged citizenry.
This is one reason why I own
This is one reason why I own my cable modem and a HDhomerun prime. I don't need a tech to visit to get my internet/tv setup when I move, so they can't try to screw me by upselling without my permission. Also I don't pay any HD fees, cable box/pvr fees or really any fees at all; my 79.99 package comes to $82 after taxes.
Comcast
We switched from Comcast three years ago and have never looked back. Yesterday, a Comcast rep was in the area (installing service for our neighbors, the poor souls) and he knocked at our door. When I answered, he tried to pitch me to come back. I said I wasn't interested. He said, "What if I put money in your pocket?"
"No, I'm seriously not interested."
"$300?"
"Nope. You couldn't pay me enough to come back."
He seemed like a nice guy, but I knew he was the devil.
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com
Comcastic
Comcast also regularly came by my old house, noticing the RCN box on the side, and would ring us and try to get us to switch. They pulled this once at 9:30 at night. Excellent way to get new sales!
Comcast? Yeah, those (expletives)
Done with them after I had a problem with my internet cutting out. I didn't have a cell phone at the time, so I attempted to schedule a tech visit in person at a field office.
"We can't do that here. Maybe you can borrow your friend's phone."
(Expletive) off. I see you in person, I expect this to get done when I do. Haven't looked back. DirecTV serves me quite well with TV service, Verizon is fine for DSL. And of course, Comcast decided to try to auto bill me after I cancelled, which rose to the level of a fraud claim with Bank of America.
Email enough and they call you to apologize
Whenever something completely egregious happens to us regarding Comcast (like our new phone number being double-assigned to someone else, our transfer to a new apartment being entered as a new customer with a serious downgrade in service, or being given the run around for a name change, to name a few), I write a polite but firm/annoyed email to their customer service. Within a couple of days someone from Comcast Corporate is calling me to apologize and give me credits on my bill, and it sounds like they maybe have some power to fix the regular customer service. Maybe.