The absence of the internet for two days left me a quivering
pile of childish rage. Not my best
moment. I really wanted to play on the
interwebs and, thanks to AT&T, I couldn’t.
I wanted to surf and play computer games. Not earth shattering. I also wanted to write for this blog which is
a bit more important than simple hand eye coordination silliness. Without the connection I felt it worthless to
spend a few hours writing (It wasn’t but I was angry). So I plugged and replugged. I reset the modem. I begged the web gods. I called (well Adi called) and talked with
tech support. I hate tech support. It isn’t the support people’s fault; I’ve run
a support desk and the ingenuity of people’s stupidity simply astounds me. One of the problems with tech support is they
have a process to go through. The
plugging and replugging the simple checks.
Why, you might ask, because it works
a lot. The replugging is often because
of a snag on their end. Your router was
on when there was a hard reset somewhere down the line.
Is this such a big problem though? Am I making too much out of it… not really. Here is why.
We need the internet. I’m not
joking in the slightest. It isn’t an
inalienable right but it’s almost as important as the rest of utilities along
with power and water. It’s frightening
to think that but imagine no more internet.
How do most people apply for jobs, find, respond and get jobs. Through email. Don’t think social media is important? Social media drives marketing, data mining,
gaming and tons of other industries on the rise. It’s part of our social culture as well. It’s like banning writing letters. The internet is not a joke as much as it
tries to act that way. But moving along…
Comcast, my least favorite provider, was awesome at never
alerting me to outages. I lived in
Philadelphia, the city where Comcast was spawned. I spent hours on the phone haggling with
them. Often the signal was bad. And they wouldn’t tell me until I went
through the twenty minutes of waiting and then more twenty minutes of the
normal bullshit process to eliminate those who A.) don’t have time, B.) have
short fuses and C.) are idiots who don’t know what to do otherwise. Then they’d try to hang up as soon as
possible close out the ticket and tell me it will be fixed eventually. This is why people hate cable and internet
service providers. The customer service
sucks and outages are awful. Outages are
constant and never explained. Worse they
don’t refund your time. I pay for a
month of uninterrupted and unlimited service why should I pay full price when
they don’t hold up their end. I pay on
time. I guarantee if I don’t pay they’ll
be calling and demanding their money.
They would be correct. But I said
I was experiencing technical difficulties and would get back to them in two
days or so they wouldn’t laugh. They
lack humor.
Do these Internet Service Providers need to be held accountable
for proper service? How bad are
they? Well read this about Comcast and
yes it’s from wiki so take it with a grain of salt.
“In 2004 and 2007, the American Customer Satisfaction Index survey
found that Comcast had the worst customer satisfaction rating of any company or
government agency in the country, including the Internal Revenue Service. However, the
ACSI indicates that almost half of all cable
customers (regardless of company) have registered complaints,
and that cable is the only industry to score below 60 in the ACSI.”
So, that’s not so good.
Comcast is less liked than the IRS.
Think about that for a minutes, the only job of the IRS is to take your
money. And people like the IRS more than
Comcast. Thank god they are not running
the prison system. But don’t worry private
business is gobbling up all the prison systems in an attempt to create a nice
little relationship with the government which has been likened to the military
industrial complex. Which is bad in that
it means these for profit companies want there to be people in jail and want to
make it profitable and for the government to need to rely on them Yay!
So how bad is Comcast?
Is it just constant outages, and garbage support? Nope. Let me give you a small personal
example of annoyance followed by a not so small but not personal example. When we moved to Groton for about a year it
was my turn to set up cable. The
wonderful complex – by wonderful I really mean monstrously bad people who suck
the happiness directly out of their inhabitants like happiness succubi – told
us in no uncertain terms get Comcast. I’m
rather sure this isn’t fair and perhaps even illegal but it isn’t worth calling
Alaska to find out; my brother the lawyer is currently in Alaska being cold and
doing various lawyery things. So I set
up Comcast. I pull full Comcast prices
but don’t get full services. I get the
bargain basement cable company they swallowed from the area. So I get crap service for expensive prices
with no ability to haggle. Meanwhile the
other cable company nearby is fair better and cheaper. But Comcast doesn’t care. They don’t have to care. They have so much of the market share they
can afford to upset most of the customers because they won’t leave. Also some manner of apathy plays in. It’s a
pain in the ass to switch so dealing with it seems a better prospect. My Groton service included an outdated box,
bad service, crappy signal, and full price.
So my internet speeds were less than advertised but still at the rate I
should pay for full speed. Sweet.
But that’s just annoyances.
What about profiteering during a natural disaster. That sounds heartwarming and uplifting. It’s like an uplifting Disney movie playing
in reverse. Things go from ok to awful
to worse. And then don’t get
better. Again this is from wiki so it
could be incorrect, overstated or totally true.
Knowing Comcast I’m leaning towards factual. During hurricane Ike Comcast charged for
damaged and lost equipment. Warms the
cockles of your heart. Plus they didn’t
compensate the bill for interrupted service.
Even warmer cockles!
So, in short, fuck you Comcast, you’re bad people and should feel bad. And AT&T, you suck too.
Ben
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Thanks for posting. You are awesome!