You all may be wondering why I’ve been posting so many YouTube music videos lately. It’s because my evil cable company has gotten worse and t.v. has been a distant memory for the past few days…
It all started…Well, it all started about a year ago with Charter’s Internet service, which was junk from the beginning. It reset itself, hung, and dropped connections left and right. I signed on with OpenDNS a few months ago. Suddenly, my speed increased tenfold. (OpenDNS is a must for anyone with a home connection. Go to their site to find out more.)
I had been happy with Charter’s cable service until a few months ago, when I ordered HD. After activating the service, I drove all the way to Willimantic to pick up my new box, the Scientific Atlanta 8300HD. (I was already locked in to three years of TiVo, but since I wanted to be able to record shows in HD, I’m paying $16.99 per month extra for the DVR box.) It’s a damn good thing I kept the TiVo, though, because the SA box is probably the worst piece of consumer electronic equipment I have ever owned. I have two Macintosh computers and assorted peripherals, an Onkyo receiver, a Polk XM tuner, a 100-disc Pioneer CD changer, a Teac turntable, a Teac iPod dock, a 60GB iPod, a 1GB iPod Shuffle, a Panasonic DVD recorder, and a Sony VCR, and I’ve never had trouble with any of them. But this SA box…This thing brings new meaning to the word “useless.”
First off, the GUI is nearly impossible to navigate easily and the software is completely worthless. If you’re recording a show from 9:00-10:00 and you start watching the recording at 9:30, the DVR will switch itself back to real time at 10:00, requiring you to go back to the program list and fast forward in order to watch the rest of your show. There is no easy way to record shows by time, channel, or keyword. There is no way to get the fast forward feature to rubberband back if you overshoot a block of commercials. (The TiVo really spoiled me, but I’m not spending $800 on the HD TiVo unit just yet…) I soldiered on, though, because watching shows in HD makes watching regular analog television into a painful experience.
Last Monday, everything changed. As you may recall, the season premiere of 24 was spread out over two nights. The SA recorded Sunday night’s episodes just fine. But halfway through Monday night’s first episode, the box suddenly switched off, went into “boot” mode, and reset itself. The three or four-minute reset process meant that there were three or four minutes when nothing was recording or available on screen. In 24, entire plot lines are resolved in three or four minutes, so I knew I had to get the t.v. back on if I wanted to understand anything.
After the SA booted up again, I hit the “Watch TV” button on the Harmony 520 and quickly turned back to FOX. After about 10 seconds, it happened again: power off, “boot” mode, restart. I tried again. And again. And again. Finally, I switched to TiVo and watched the rest of the episode in regular definition (barf!). At 10:00, I called that familiar number: 1-888-GET-CHARTER. (They should make 1-888-GET-RID-OF-CHARTER, shouldn’t they?) I remained on hold for a good 28 minutes. (Their recorded message was: “It’s a Monday night, so all of our operators are busier than usual!” Maybe they’re busier than usual because they suck so badly. Just a thought.)
Anyone who has ever called Charter knows that, in order to talk to a real person, you must go through their automated system first. Of course, the automated lady does everything that I’ve already done, inasmuch as I end up calling Charter about once every ten days and could do these steps in my sleep. In order to get to an operator, you actually have to go through the entire automated process (unplug device, wait 30 seconds, reboot, load program information, discover the problem is not yet fixed) and then CALL BACK, going through the initial menus again. At this point, the lady says, “It seems as if you’ve already called about this problem. Would you like to —”
“YES!” I scream in frustration. I know she’s going to ask me if I’d like to talk to an operator. I’ve done this many, many times before.
After only 18 minutes this time (on speakerphone with no Muzak, thank you very much), I was connected with Francisco. I told him about the problem I had been having, and he said that he’d “check it” from his end. “That’s funny,” he told me. “I’m getting an intermittent signal from your cable box!”
“Yeah, you probably are,” I replied, “because it’s intermittently working.” (I’d like to try intermittently paying my bill — let’s see how they like that. “Intermittent” my foot. More like “Not-er-mittent.”)
“We’ll have to send someone out,” he told me. “Do you have wire insurance?”
“What?!”
“Wire insurance,” he explained. (He was much more patient with me than I was with him.) “If the problem is a hardware problem, the technician’s visit is free. But if it’s a wire problem, you have to pay for the service call.”
“Um, Francisco,” I said, “of course it’s a goddamn hardware problem. And don’t even talk to me about ‘wire insurance.’ Do you see my call log on your screen?”
“Yes,” he said.
“How many times have I called in the past six months with a problem?” I asked.
“Looks like a lot,” he said.
“There you go,” I said. “And it’s been Charter’s fault every time. So send the tech out. But I’m not paying anything.”
Someone must’ve been listening. Francisco gave a five-hour window (noon to 5 P.M.), but I got a call from Andy relatively early, at 1:30. (Andy’s a new tech; the other guy moved to L.A. a few months ago.) The only thing about Charter that doesn’t raise my blood pressure are the techs; they work quickly and competently, and they don’t seem to care about the nest of wires behind my Ikea electronics cabinet. Andy replaced the SA box (he said that the power supply problem happens often), and he left about five minutes after he arrived.
He didn’t leave a bill.
As of 5:00 this afternoon, everything was working well. This won’t last, but I’m going to bask in the glow, anyway. I know that I’ll be back on the phone with Charter by the end of the month. But for now, I’m happy.
Everyone complains about Cox, Adelphia, Time-Warner…But these companies are nothing compared to Charter, the communications company that makes it a struggle to communicate.
N.P.: Atlantics | “Pop Shivers”
