Adventures in Cable-ism

I made a change yesterday. A simple change that will save me all of $5 per month. It will take me a little over 16 months to break even on this change but it's worth it, I think.

What change was that, you ask? I purchased a cable modem to replace the one I rent from the the cable company. And then I had to install it. Simple process, one would think. Except nothing is that simple when dealing with a cable company. You see, they have to authorize it. That is, they have to recognize the modem and initialize it to work in their network. They do this through something called a MAC address. Each cable modem has a unique one.

I had a little problem, however, a "catch-22" of sorts. My landline uses the internet, Vonage provides my dialtone. So, while swapping cable modems, I would be without telephone service until the new cable modem is initialized by Comcast. To do this, I must call Comcast, give them the MAC address, and wait while they "find" it and initialize it. I have a back up phone, my cell phone (as most all of us do these days) but it is a "pay as you go" service. It costs me 25 cents a minute. It takes over 15 minutes just to navigate your way through the voice menu at Comcast. And then you may have to wait a half hour to actually talk to a human.

I called in hopes of setting up an appointment for today. After spending that 15 minutes wading through the voice menu, I was connected to a recording which told me no one was available (they were all "assisting other customers") but offered to call me back in "an hour to an hour 29 minutes." I chose that option... not really having much choice at all, I suppose.

A little over an hour later, I did receive a call from Comcast, a young woman who said her name was "Coco." She was not local, she was in Orlando. Which is fine. She asked if I wanted to make the swap today, now, as we spoke. I explained my situation to her and she was sympathetic (or seemed so anyway). She called me on my cell number when I was ready to swap out the modem. I had powered it up and it was in place and ready to go.

To my astonishment, everything went smoothly.

Some days, all is truly right with the world.

Thanks, Coco.