More Fun with Comcast

I just concluded my most recent adventure with Comcast. Previous adventures include this relatively minor incident (in which they hooked up my HDTV wrong and it stayed that way for almost a year) and the time (before this blog) where I was reduced night after night to bellowing swears at the top of my lungs for hours and hours.

I now have the top of the line TiVo. One of the features is a dual tuner, meaning I can now record and watch two shows at once. The cable company installs two cable cards into the TiVo itself, and then it can decode the cable signals. (As a bonus, there is no longer any need for the Comcast cable box at all, it gets sent back and saves me a few bucks.) These cable cards are provided by Comcast by law.

CableCard2 worked fine from the beginning. CableCard1 worked for most channels, but not extended basic (Vh1, Comedy Central, TNT, etc). No signal.

Are you following along at home? Here’s a quiz to find out how technical you are. With the symptoms I’ve described, is the problem likely to be associated with:
a) TiVo hardware (faulty cablecard slot)
b) Comcast hardware (faulty cablecard)
c) Comcast software (billing, signal, etc.)

The answer is C. Since it receives most channels, it must be something about the way the channels are activated. The technician is on the phone to headquarters, they send their signal nothing happens. They do a ping, they try a reset, nothing happens. Dispatch shrugs. They claim that it’s all fixed (since headquarters sent the signal), I must need to wait for the signal to propagate or repeat the TiVo setup or something, and they leave. Needless to say, it is not fixed. I call HQ, we do the dance again, they send more signals, eventually they give up and send Dispatch back over.

(Note that Comcast has no obvious incentive to train their people well on TiVo. It just makes it easier to use the competition’s product. On the other hand, it shouldn’t take more than two minutes to realize that it still to their advantage to make the transition easy.)

I am now caught in an endless loop of idiocy. Dispatch are nice guys, they follow their script well. When the script fails, they are helpless. They blame it on headquarters, and leave. HQ are nice people. They follow their script well. When the script fails, they are helpless. They schedule Dispatch to come out, and hang up. Repeat as needed. The two sides cannot talk to each other directly, only throw an obviously bad CRM ticketing tool. Every once in a while I am told I have a priority complaint, or a nonfixed visit, or I’m referred to sales, or a supervisor steps in to be helpless personally, just enough to make me feel like something is actually happening they are fixing as best they can oh I am such a chump!

Almost two weeks go by. I’ve spoken to headquarters about six times. I’ve had four, count ’em four, visits from technicians. The problem is the same as ever.

I blow a gasket with headquarters. It get elevated up a couple levels, and after 40 minutes of signals and discussion, they take decisive action. Dispatch is scheduled. NNYARRGGH!!

Finally, I do what I should have done (thank you Moleboy!) and browse the TiVo forums. It’s not their problem at all, as Comcast is legally required to make this work. Nevertheless, there is oodles of information.

When the guy shows up, I am ready. I have every code number documented. I have six pages of printouts with all kinds of debugging tips and probable solutions to try. I don’t let him near the system until I’ve explained everything I can. I tell him that he isn’t leaving the house until it works. Then I give him a few minutes to confirm that the last six things tried really didn’t work. He calls headquarters, they send a new signal.

And it works. It works! It works, it works, it works! What, I ask, exactly did headquarters do? I dunno, they just sent the signal. Didn’t ask for nuthin’ special. I am too happy to be enraged. Ah. Happiness is having The Family Guy Star Wars episode on TiVo, even when it was broadcast at the same time as Desperate Housewives.