Adventures in cable

Remember when I complained about my cable company? Wasn't that long ago. The next day I called them... that, in itself, was an experience.

I called the local number for the Comcast office in our area. Apparently, that's a mistake. What I got was a few rings and then "dead air" (as we called in the telecom biz)... as if a person answered the phone and then just hung up. And then an incoming call came in after I disconnected. It turned out to be my cable company! An automated call back apparently initiated by my call into the local number. Very weird.

But I stayed on the line and wended my way through the voice menu, tapping the options that would get me to a alleged human being. She was polite, she was concerned, she was ultimately useless. The problem was not there now. How could I have called if it was? I would have had to use my cell phone since the problem interrupted my VoIP Vonage service as well as my TV and internet to call during an outage. I explained this to her, she was sympathetic (I know because she repeatedly told me how sorry the company is for causing me any distress). But everything seemed fine now, the signal strength seemed strong according to her tests into whatever it was she was testing into.*

In any event, she suggested I call when the problem happens (or I first notice it) so tests could be made at that time. So I would have to resort to my cell phone which rarely gets a good signal inside my house.

But an odd thing happened... I stopped having the problem. Since that call, the trouble has seemingly disappeared. This suggests to me two things:

1. They were performing some kind of maintenance during the early morning outage periods and my complaint triggered a change in that schedule or, coincidently, the maintenance was over and done with. Or...
2. The problem I was having was caused by the switch unit which is activated by her test and her operating that switch accidentally cleared the problem. This was not unusual in the days when these switches were electro-mechanical but rarely since they have become digital and non-mechanical in nature. I would expect, however, to have an interruption in our phone conversation if the switch was in series with my cable signal rather than in parallel.. or in the DVR.

Still, I await the next time this problem pops up... which I am sure will happen.


*I do know something about this... unless she created a loop inside one of the DVRs in my house, her test was only to a last test point (probably at the nearest signal amplifier point on the pole a couple of lots away) and not into my house.