Comcast wireless internet service

This is based on a true story. However, I would never consider poking around in sensitive cable company equipment, not even when the lid is left half-cocked and the cable sitting out on my lawn where it could be run over with a mower. Like this picture here, taken in my back yard.


I'm a long-time Comcast customer. When their broadband Internet service works, it's great - fast and reliable. But if something goes wrong, Comcast's support staff and contractors are apparently so compartmentalized that the support conversations can turn surreal.

I recently cancelled my cable TV but asked to keep my broadband Internet service. The customer representative I spoke with was simply astonished that I would stop watching television. "You went cold turkey on the TV?!" We both laughed. She explained that the broadband price goes up if you don't have a bundle, but I was cool with that. She gave me a "customer retention discount". Nice lady.

My bill arrived. Everything looked right. I didn't bother to check whether the cable TV had been turned off; I didn't care one way or the other.

Some time later, my Internet connection went down. That's not so unusual; every service must have maintenance periods. But this was in the middle of a weekday afternoon. It stayed down. I asked Danielle to call Comcast support, as I was feeling pretty grumpy.

Anyone who has ever had a Comcast outage surely knows this routine: You navigate a series of telephone voice response menus. A recorded message may insist that you consider their online support options, even though you've indicated that you're calling about a failure of Internet service. You confirm your phone number. While on hold, you may listen to the same ad for a pay-per-view boxing match once per minute, every minute, even though your phone number is sufficient to let them know you don't have cable TV on your account.

Eventually you speak to a person. The first thing you're asked for when you're connected is the phone number you were required to confirm before they picked up.

The call center script must look a lot like this:

1. Ask the customer to reboot their cable modem.
2. Ask the customer to reboot their router.
3. Ask the customer to reboot their PC.
4. If the problem isn't fixed, pass the buck and schedule a truck roll.
5. There is no five. End the call politely but quickly.
   

What you will not get from most of the daytime phone support staff is technical support. God help you if you try to use networking jargon or make any attempt to help them diagnose the problem. Now, this isn't always true. I've talked to people in the call center who really seemed to know their stuff, and even though it sounded like they were being actively hobbled by whatever helpdesk software they're required to use, they do try to troubleshoot. But those techs mostly come out at night. Mostly.

I had an intermittent outage last spring that took a month and a half and innumerable phone calls to fix. It was a night tech who finally managed to jam "10% packet loss bad, mmkay?" through their escalation firewall and get someone to troubleshoot the neighborhood equipment instead of replacing my cable modem for a 4th time. It helped that he was a gamer. I was playing Age of Conan online at the time. The packet loss was virtually killing us. He understood.

The first phone support tech we talked to for this outage claimed that she could "see the modem" but "not see any traffic going up or down". That's very interesting, considering what I found later. She scheduled a truck roll for two days later.

Two days without net access. Ugh. That's just...ugh.

I thought the first tech's comment was a little odd, so I called back again later to try my hand at Call Center Roulette. The second tech said she couldn't see the modem at all. Which made sense to me, considering that the modem couldn't see Comcast.

I suppose most customers aren't aware that cable modems have an internal web service that'll tell you your cable modem's status. It's no secret, it just isn't advertised. My modem was telling me it had no signal at all. Like there was no cable plugged in. More fool me, I tried to tell the tech that the cable modem had logged the loss of sync that afternoon - yes, there's a log file in there, complete with helpful timestamped error messages - and it had been hunting for a frequency ever since.

There was a long pause. Then she asked me,

"Are there any lights on your cable modem?"

Tell me...how many lights you see?

"..."

"...There's a light for 'power'. The light for 'cable' is flashing. Because it has no signal."

"Well-then-we-have-to-send-a-tech-out. To-check-your-modem." (She really did start speedtalking. I was headed off-script; it was time for her to end the call.)

"Oookay. This is a rental modem. If it's a problem with the modem, I can just drive to the local Comcast shop and have them swap it out, right?"

"Yes, you can do that sir."

"So let's say I do that. I swap the modem. I bring the new, Comcast-provided modem home and plug it in. Let's say this new modem can't see Comcast either. What do we do then?"

"... Sir, then we'd have to send a tech out to check your modem."

"I...see."

"Is-there-anything-else-I-can-help-you-with?"

I'm quite positive there isn't. Have a nice evening.

You may already have figured out what happened; by now I was getting suspicious. The next day, I checked all the connections. Upstairs, basement, wall box, and...out back.

aether-net?

The big silver thing on the right is a filter. That's my neighbor's cable. They have broadband Internet but no cable TV. The filter removes the frequencies used for TV while allowing those for data to pass through. Since I was no longer paying for TV, they had the option of putting one of these on my line as well.

That's not what happened.

Note the distinct lack of wire in that connector on the left. That's my line. This is what their phone techs were trying to diagnose by having me repeatedly reboot my PC and networking equipment. The metal cylinder on the end is a tamper-resistant locking cable terminator, which obviously isn't locked. In fact it was barely even screwed in. Why?

Because a Comcast contractor had tramped through my yard without notifying me and, contrary to instructions, put a terminator on the line to prevent me from stealing the cable I'm paying for. And then failed to lock it. Which meant a) their contractor was incompetent, no matter what his instructions were, and b) I could restore my Internet access by simply removing the damn thing.

But they'd already scheduled a truck roll for the next day, and I didn't want to mess with their equipment. I confess I also wanted to see the look on the field tech's face when he opened up the box and saw what was in there.

I called back again, explained that somebody had goofed, and asked what they expected me to do next. The tech seemed perplexed...why had my cable just gone out? The work order was from last month. I explained that he probably shouldn't trust the dates on his screen. During the previous outage, they'd had a tech run a new line from the back yard to the house (which achieved nothing) and scheduled someone else to bury it. Their contractor, unconcerned with the state law regarding underground utilities, dug a trench and planted the cable. The JULIE team came out two days later to spray paint lines and plant warning flags - to prevent the Comcast guy who'd already dug the trench from accidentally hitting a natural gas line.

I was put on hold for a while. When the tech came back, he told me I'd have to wait for tomorrow's truck roll and they'd get everything sorted. I asked if there was any way they could get it over with today, seeing as there was nothing actually wrong with any of the equipment. No, I'd have to wait until tomorrow. He signed off with an eloquent goodbye in a tone of extreme irony, explaining in detail how much Comcast valued their customers.

We weren't done yet. Now that this truck roll was go, it needed to be confirmed. Twice.

The first call was just to confirm that I really would like a tech to come out and fix the line they were now on record as having screwed up themselves. Yes, I'm still at the same phone number and address I was yesterday. No, my house has not suffered a spontaneous relocation to a different zip code.

As I was ready to hang up, he gave me an enthusiastic pitch for their email-based support solutions, presumably an initiative by a different department to reduce the cost of all these truck rolls. I couldn't help laughing.

"But I have no net access. With which to, you know, access email. A Comcast contractor disconnected it. That's why we're having this conversation."

Long pause.

(mildly condescending) "There are other ways to access email."

Well of course there are! I could drive to the public library, I could run out and drop a grand to buy a laptop and then use the WiFi at Starbuck's, or I could...let's see...really stretching for solutions here...call one of your competitors? WTF?

I was still laughing when he hung up.

One more robocall-directed conversation confirmed that I was willing to wait around all afternoon, and no, they couldn't give me an ETA more accurate than some time in a 3 hour period (these guys don't have mobile phones and GPS? Really?) The truck came out on schedule. Hallelujah!  I could finally stop yelling "INTERNETS!" at Danielle.

Of course this tech had been given absolutely no record of the previous conversations, so he didn't know why he was there. The Comcast helpdesk software must be beastly. No matter. He looked tired. I told him, "Hi. I'll save you some time. Let's head straight out back. Someone mistakenly put a terminator on my line."

He said, "Wonderful."

And removed it.