The Eastern High School marching band has been invited to perform at the Pro Football Hall of Fame festivities next week.  Problem is, they’re having trouble raising funds for the trip.  According to a great piece over at City Desk, the band was counting on checks from summer jobs to pay for their bus tickets to Canton.  If you haven’t heard, there was quite an issue with the District’s payroll system and now the band has $500 total.  Unsurprisingly, the Redskins organization “doesn’t do smaller grants” and basically isn’t helping, even though the band is representing the District (what, the Redskins are in Md now, so I guess that doesn’t count?  The school’s practically in the shadow of RFK, but hey, those days are over?) and 2 of the 6 inductees for 2008 were Redskins players (Darrell Green and Art Monk - Green, as you probably know, spent his entire career with the Redskins).

Their plan is to leave at midnight Friday.  If you can, please help by contacting band director James Perry at James2081[at]comcast[dot]net

After we hit Rocklands on Saturday night with our friends, it was back to their place for a watching of The Godfather on A&E. Our friend Steph had never seen it, and it was well past time that she did. We sat through all the commercials, but learned some valuable things. Jon was quick to point out that he’d seen messages from his TiVo that indicated he’d gotten a bunch of new channels added to his lineup by Comcast. Indeed, there they were: Sci-Fi HD (mmm, BSG in HD!), Food Network (mmmm, Giada in HD!) and USA HD and TBS HD (mmmm more Jack McCoy in HD!) and a few other channels! How exciting!

When I headed home, we fired up the TiVo HD that I jumped through so many hoops to get showed all of the brand new channels! Hooray! Unfortunately, nothing but grey screen. I confirmed this with Jon, and sure enough, he was in grey screen land as well. My friend Jeff didn’t even see them in his lineup, but got “Channel Not Available” messages when he tuned to them with his Comcast DVR.

Oddly, though, they’re part of Comcast’s Programming Lineup page, and yet, they’re dark for all subscribers in the region. (Feel free to use either Arlington’s 22201 or a DC zip code to check if you have to.) When I talked to a technician this afternoon, he said they had yet to launch, but gave no indication as to why they were in the system. When Jeff talked to a technician this afternoon, he said they weren’t supposed to be in any lineup published anywhere. And yet, there they are.

When I reached out to Comcast’s Press Office, I was told by Lisa Altman that Comcast would launch the new networks “sometime in the first quarter of 2008.” Odd. Seems like they’re advertising a service that they’re not delivering. Generally, that’s frowned upon by various federal regulators when it comes to a service like cable television. I’ve put the new HD Lineup in the Extended Entry, copied directly from the Comcast website. What are you seeing on your cable box?
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I hate to follow up the earlier feel-good with bitching but not so much that I’ll refrain, apparently. If for no other reason but to respond to Prontovega.

Just minutes after I posted that, I got a call from an automated dialer system - Comcast, stating they had an urgent matter to discuss about my bill, press 1 to talk to someone. Having done this dance with them before, I press 1 and open my online banking webpage while I wait.

After a few moments, during which I discover that yes, I have indeed paid them and they have indeed managed to jerk it up yet again, someone comes on the line…. and asks me for my phone number.

You know, the number that just rang when someone called it. Someone who I am talking to now.

But I have done this dance before, as I said, and I know the steps. So I read it to her and state, as always, that it’s pretty annoying to be asked for my phone number when it’s them who called me and maybe they should have some idea who they’re calling. “Thats’ the auto-dialer sir, not me.” I state, as I always do, that I understand that she did not punch the buttons herself, but never the less my phone rang and the person on the other end then asked me for my phone number. “Well, we’re calling about your bill and to ask if you have made a payment or if you would like to make a payment.”

I refrain from a ah-hah, you admit you called moment and state “I show that I paid X amount on 9/28.” I similarly refrain from commenting on how their inability to credit my account doesn’t seem to be accompanied by an inability to cash checks, and how unfortunate that is.

I don’t bother to share how completely delighted I am going to be not to ever have to deal with these chumps again once I transfer the account over to my former roommate, but it brings a smile to my face never the less. While he has no choice of internet providers there, I have several options in my new home and they haven’t gotten around to angering me yet.

Show me a person who hasn’t had a blood-boiling experience with Comcast and I’ll show you a person who has never had cable TV. Whether they’ve screwed up your bill, showed up five hours late for a service call, or taken three visits to actually fix your problem, their quality of customer service is at the bottom of every industry.

Let’s say for example that Comcast scheduled an appointment to come by your house for an installation, didn’t show up, came by two days later, then botched the installation. You decide to go to the local Comcast service center to complain, patiently wait two hours, only to be told that the manager has left for the day. What would you do?! What would you do?! Stop! Hammertime.

That’s exactly what little ol’ Mona Shaw of Bristow decided to do as she went home and stewed over the weekend, got her husband’s claw hammer, and went back to the service center to let them know who’s boss. According to today’s Washington Post article:

“Hammer time: Shaw storms in the company’s office. BAM! She whacks the keyboard of the customer service rep. BAM! Down goes the monitor. BAM! She totals the telephone. People scatter, scream, cops show up and what does she do? POW! A parting shot to the phone!”

She claims that her blood pressure skyrocketed, she started to hyperventilate, and was ultimately booked by Johnny Law. She was fined $345 and received a three month suspended sentence for disorderly conduct. Poor little ol’ lady. While I don’t think busting office equipment with a hammer is the solution to every problem, kudos to her for letting her voice - and her hammer - be heard.

Photo by yoganerd

It took four days and two trips to my house by Comcast staff, as well as six phone calls to Comcast across two days, but I now have a TiVo HD working with the Comcast network.

Folks, this is absolutely positively ridiculous. It should not be this hard to get a cable-ready device working. The reason for the 1996 Telecommunications Act was to make this possible and doable, not to make it obfuscated, arcane and foreign. But, I guess that’s how Comcast is.

Tom’s got a rather unpleasant Comcast experience he wrote about here and a twittering little birdie leads me to believe that more is on the horizon. The question is, when the company with a monopoly on your service doesn’t seem to give a rat’s ass about serving you what are you supposed to do about it?

You put pen to paper and let the local and national regulatory boards know about the bad service, that’s what. What we’re interested in is over here, their general information sheet.

Here’s what Tom should be concerned with (emphasis mine):

Cable operators may schedule appointments for installations and other service calls either at a specific time or, at a maximum, during a four-hour time block during normal business hours. Cable operators may also schedule service calls outside of normal business hours for the convenience of the customer. No appointment cancellations are permitted after the close of business on the business day prior to the scheduled appointment. If the cable installer or technician is running late and will not meet the specified appointment time, he or she must contact the customer and reschedule the appointment at the convenience of the subscriber. These requirements concerning installations, outages and service calls must ordinarily be met at least 95 percent of the time, measured quarterly, under normal operating conditions.

So, what you or Tom should do when Comcast comes down and screws you this way is make sure the FCC knows about their failures. These folks have been granted use of OUR land to run their monopoly cables and things over so they need to hold up their end of the bargain and provide appropriate service. If you have questions or your needs aren’t being met, you can call the toll-free number, 1-888-225-5322 (1-888-CALLFCC). A letter is worth a thousand nasty phone calls, however, so send your written complaints to:

FCC,
Cable Services Bureau,
445 12th Street, S.W.
Washington, D.C., 20554

Today was my install date for the CableCards that I ranted about earlier this week. My window for install was 3-6pm today, and as of 6:15 when no one had showed, I called Comcast. I was told, then, that they would have someone there within minutes. At 6:50, when no one had showed, I called again, and told the technician was 40 minutes out. At 8:00, when no one was there, I called again, and was told he was coming at 8:30.

So, when he got there at 8:40, bearing only apologies for having bad cablecards, I was pretty upset. Why you would go out on a call with Cable Cards that were marked with bright pink stickers with BAD written on them, I’m not exactly sure, but that’s what Comcast did tonight.

Folks, what they’re doing, through their neglect of their responsibilities is practically criminal. Give us the cards, give us support to make them work, but don’t treat us like we’re not customers because we want better than the crappy DVR box you provide. The difference between the two is night and day, and frankly, if I’m gonna pay for the nice gear, you should at least have the common decency to just turn over the cards and make it work.

Imagine my surprise today when my new TivoHD arrived today, earlier than the 8 days I was expecting it to take from its California warehouse. I called up Comcast and asked for two CableCards, and was told I could pick them up from any of the billing locations.

Off I went, braving the rain, to my local billing office. There, I was told by an incredibly surly woman that only “qualified technicians” could install them. I recognize that not everyone works in tech here in the Greater DC area, but I’d say a sizeable number of people can understand the concept of plugging in a card. It’s not that tricky, honestly. Slide the card in until you feel it seat, then plug all the goodies in. But no, they send some contractor lackey out, instead. The earliest I can get one is Sunday from 3-6. So, for the next couple days, I’ll be suffering with just the local channels, including this afternoon’s Girlfriends marathon on UPN 20.

But what this really comes down to is openness in technology. In 1996, Congress passed an act that required cable systems to open up, meaning that we weren’t required to use their crappy ass set top boxes anymore. I know that the HD DVR they installed is the single shittiest piece of consumer electronics I’ve ever used, and I was very pleased to get the new TiVoHD unit today. The openness that the Telecommunications Act of 1996 mandated is coming soon to cellphones, as the latest broadband auction has a few more rules tied up in how the bandwidth will be used (all handsets made for the spectrum will be usable on any carrier, the same will be true for various applications used in the spectrum, as well), making it more open, too.

What’s left? Well, our cable companies still are messing with consumers instead of giving them the technology to enable their further use of their system. More and more, consumers want companies out of the way of their goals. Apple recently accomplished this with their iPhone. Want a new phone? Buy it in the store and activate it at home, instead of having to wait for a good 30-45 minutes while a pimply faced teenager misspells your name or street for the third time. You control the experience. You control the technology, even if you’re beholden to their network, it’s a start.

C’mon Comcast, we can figure this stuff out, if you just let us.

When latency began to spike at Murky this afternoon, I chalked it up to someone bit torrenting the latest episode of Drive, or something along those lines. When DNS stopped working, I figured it was the modem in need of a restart and since it was just after 5, I packed up for home. Imagine my surprise when I came home to find those very same symptoms at my condo in Fairlington. And at my friend Lisa’s in Virginia Square. And at my friend Ben’s in Rockville. All over the DC area, there’s a good portion of the internet that’s inaccessible, if you’re a Comcast customer.

When I broke down and called support at 8:00pm, I spend a good half hour on hold, only to find out that since my cable modem and phone are on the same box, I had to be transferred again. After more time on hold, I got to talk to someone in their tech support group. Hooboy. That was an experience. Apparently, at 8:30 or so, they’re finally noticing that there’s been a networkwide issue for close to 4 hours. Glad to see pattern matching is alive and well at Comcast.

According to my friend in Rockville who’s got contacts in the business support area, it’s a major issue that’s affecting all of DC, they’ve known about it for a couple hours and have techs working on the issue. Here’s hoping you can go a whole night without half the internet. Go out. Have a good time.

Google WiFi Loving

Have you always hated the Comcast/RCN/Verizon triopoly of broadband Internet service providers in Washington DC?

Have you wanted to flush the poor service and hig fees? Well now you can, with the new Google TiSP!

As a partnership with the DC , Google will be brining high-speed Internet to DC starting today, according to the press release:

Google Inc. today announced the launch of Google TiSP (BETA)™, a free in-home wireless broadband service that delivers online connectivity via users’ plumbing systems. The Toilet Internet Service Provider (TiSP) project is a self-installed, ad-supported online service that will be offered entirely free to any consumer with a WiFi-capable PC and a toilet connected to a local municipal sewage system.

“We’ve got that whole organizing-the-world’s-information thing more or less under control,” said Google Co-founder and President Larry Page, a longtime supporter of so-called “dark porcelain” research and development. “What’s interesting, though, is how many different modalities there are for actually getting that information to you - not to mention from you.”

Now the connection method might be a little unorthodox, but the blazing fast connection at the rock bottom price of $0 cannot be beat. All you need is sewer access, working toilet or not, and a little faith. Or as Google TiSP says: Want WiFi Around? Just Flush It Down!

Thanks Google, I’m gonna do that myself, right about now!