OT: Opinions on digital cable?

[Ash]

One thing I've noticed is that for a lot of cable companies, high prices, les than satisfactory quality of the service received and general incompetence seem to run rampant.
This phenomenon seems to be all over the country...nationwide.
Granted, there are many cable companies out there that do a fine job and their customers are quite happy but for every one of them, there are 2-3 that are bad.

Why do you suppose that is?
Is it the nature of the service they offer?
Those Dish Network ads you see on TV poking fun at "The Cable Pig" are more accurate than many realize.

Stop feeding the pig.com

We have Mediacom and they aren't the greatest.
We have had problems with them before such as all the program info saying, "Temporarily Not Available" for days at a time.
We've also dealt with rude Customer Service Representives who talk to you in a condescending manner.  I'll ask to speak to their supervisor and he or she will often be more rude than the CSR.

Demand credit on your bill.
That's what I do.
Anytime I experience less than satisfactory service that I'm required to pay for, I call for a credit.
There have been many times that I've paid next to nothing for a month of service because of all the credits I called in for.
It's the least the company can do if they're gonna continually offer crappy service.

I don't stand for poor service.



Post Edited (10-04-04 08:19)

[raj]

I've had Buckeye Cable for the last 18 months, with digital cable, and it's been fine (aside from the periodic price increases).  It does occasionally go out in a bad storm (I suspect the cable company gets its signal via satellite.)

I've also got cable modem now, which is faster than DSL, IIRC.

It does sound like there's something wrong with the equipment.

[JohnL]

>I don't stand for poor service.

Believe me, when I'm not happy with a service, I can be a *REAL* pain in the ass about it!

Dead Like Me is on a couple more times tonight and since this seems to be the show that they can't air without some kind of problem at the start, I'm going to check both airings and if there are any problems, I'll be calling the company tomorrow.

[JohnL]

For those following this saga...

At 9pm, DLM was on Showtime Too, so I put it on two of the TVs here. Sure enough, it started having problems right at the start. I went in the other room and the same thing was happening. I then switched channels and went right back and that fixed it on that TV, and when I went in the other room, it was still screwing up.

So, I'll be calling the cable company...

[Susan]

I forgot about that. sometimes if I had two tv's on at once the reception would be crappy on one depending on which channel was playing on the other. Oh the joys of modern convenience...

that's why i love dvd's

[JohnL]

>I forgot about that. sometimes if I had two tv's on at once the reception would be
>crappy on one depending on which channel was playing on the other. Oh the
>joys of modern convenience...

I don't think they're interacting with each other. The point is that both boxes did the same thing, but switching channels while these problems are happening will fix it, on that particular box. It's not a coincidence of the problem clearing up right as I switched channels, it definitely fixes it. So that would seem to indicate that it's a problem with the box, maybe not syncing up to the signal properly. Hopefully, it's as Anon suggested; a weak signal. I say hopefully because that should be something they can fix. The other alternative is that they're so incompetent that their service doesn't work properly, which of course, is entirely possible given my cable company's past record.