Another week of playing the telephone game

 Well.. my house just completed another couple weeks of playing the "Comcast sucks!!" game. 

Yet again, our Internet Service Provider has taken a dump on the technology we rent from them.

Yes, we rent: 

• The modem (@$14 a month)
• Which was something similar to the ARRIS Surfboard Docsis 24X8 Cable Modem / Telephone in black. 
• Kind of like the NETGEAR Nighthawk Cable Modem WiFi Router Combo with Voice C7100V
• Now it's something different.
• Something I don't have a searchable (Amazon) name for. 
• Except "xFi Advanced Gateway" (via the xFinity site)
• More on this in a few minutes.
• 4 cable boxes 
• 1 is "free" - comes with plan
• 1 is "$9.99" because it's an additional service. 
• 2 are those little banger freebie boxes... which are barely used - one is in guest room, one is in my room. I think it's been over a year since I've watched cable in my room
• * The "banger box" is officially called "Digital Transport Adapter", but I've been calling it something different for a decade. 

We pay:

• For a telephone service
• "Extreme" internet (because the wiring in my community is horrible, allegedly)
• Basic(ish) cable. 
• Our community offers "basic" cable but you still need a box to get the cable - we have a friend who moved into the houses and she tried plugging a coax cable (aka the cable wire) into her TV and wall, and got squat. Even after calling Comcast to turn everything on.. because she also purchased her own modem. The result is that you need the banger box or the actual cable box from Comcast and Comcast needs to "turn it on"
• . An "over the air converter box" might work if you didn't want to pay for cable, but still be able to watch the news. 

We rent the modem and cable boxes because we have been told that if something were to happen to the equipment (power failure, connection problems, etc), Comcast will replace the unit with another one. All we would need to do is go to the Comcast store and swap it out. 

Yet, when we lived in Brockton, I don't remember anyone mentioning "rental" prices or paying monthly for something. I don't recall having as many problems with our cable boxes then, as we do now. Although times have changed, and technology is getting faster and devices smaller, we really didn't have challenges until 2011... when we moved to Florida. The only thing I remember having issues with, were routers, and we went through a couple of those, only because I think they weren't jiving correctly with what we were paying Comcast for. I had one router for at least 5 years (something like this) while one of the modems we've had now, has only lasted 2. Then again, the routers / modems were always downstairs in my basement office, so maybe the problems were stemming from the device staying on a shelf that was near the window. Quite possibly, it was a PEBKAC issue with the seasons - winters would be freezing, summers warm. Who knows; I'm not that technically savvy to take a proper guess. I just know stuff through trial and error.

Overall, it's a bit weird and ridiculous we're turning in a used box and receiving a used box. Nothing is ever "new"; they are all refurbished units. Comcast will tell you that they factory reset everything before they give it to another customer, but, there are times the reset fails and something glitches out (they actually said this over the weekend when we called). 

Nice way to save money - charge people out the ass for a service, make them rent previously owned equipment, and that "new" device has the possibility of not being fully wiped clean of its previous users / owners. It'd be like getting a computer or a smart phone at a thrift store and getting the past owner's files still on the machine. 

Soldiering on and to the actual reason for the posting (kinda). 

Our main cable box has been pixelating a lot the past couple months. To the point that even the additional $10/month DVR service we rent, records boxy pictures. My mother has called time and again to see if a refresh signal can help or someone knows anything about it. All the techs do, is say that they can send a signal, and that's about it. Things look clean on their end.

Sometimes the refresh signal makes things worse. Even by unplugging the modem, it gets junky. 

Well, we finally had enough and were tired of attempting to watch the news and the TV going into warp speed while having the picture look liked we dropped the screen and the graphics / video card has been shaken loose / dislodged. Trust me, I know what graphics  and video card problems look like. I had a lemon of a laptop for a while. 

So we went off to the Comcast store last weekend and returned the box. Explained the situation and the store tech said it's an internet issue and we need a new modem. Without even thinking about it. He's selling us a new modem. He said he'll swap out the cable box right now, give us another modem, but we need to return the modem we left at home within 30 days or be fully charged for it.

Wait... what??? 

We weren't expecting to have to bring all tech back, just to get a new cable box...

As it is, we pay 14 bucks a month to rent the modem (like I previously stated). If we don't turn it in, they are going to charge us for keeping it?? These things aren't cheap to begin with (see the paragraphs above), and Comcast does say that you can go out and buy your own, but they don't guarantee service on their end. Nor do they recommend it. So if we don't return the rented box, we're out a couple hundred dollars in one shot... like we're out $168 for the year. 

It's almost like we're out double because we're paying the monthly rent on the box plus they're going to charge us for keeping the old one that is allegedly broken. Not that we'd want to keep the old one as it is, but based on the cluster chaos that happened when we got home, we were probably better off keeping it and not getting a new one. Or, we bite the bullet and buy our own box with no help from Comcast if things go sour. Modem dies or fries, we need to go to the big box store and buy another one. Ad nauseam. 

In the last 10 years, we've "owned" about 6 different modems and about the same amount of cable boxes, if not more. Imagine having to go to Best Buy and purchase a modem every couple years because the last one died? We'd be out several hundred dollars, if we went cheap, and maybe a thousand dollars if we invest in expense. Either way, all options lose money. It's a no win situation.

Anyway... back to the weekend.

We get home, I unpack everything. Hook  up the new cable box, let it do its thing. Unhook the old modem, attach the new one. "It looks like a diffuser" my mom said. It kinda does, in a weird way.  

See picture (I found online).

Amazon doesn't "sell" this, but they have WiFi extenders, which look similar. We need the phone line + internet + cable since we have the Triple Play. So this is what we get instead of a plain extender. 

Yes, all this talk and I haven't acknowledged one of the elephants in the room. 

We still have a land line. 

We'll always have a land line because we've always had a home phone in the house. It's all I know, and I've run through 10 flip phones and 4 fruit phones in 22 years. 

Plus a beeper. 

- Enter Two Quarters here - 

It doesn't help that this new box renders straight plug n play wall phones dead when there's no power to the modem. With the old surfboard, we used to be able to plug in a corded phone straight in to a wall and if we lost power, we'd still have a house phone. But with this new thing, and whatever they did to register it, the power goes out, we lose our house line. It's bad enough we'd lose our cordless phones as well. 

Yes, they had to register or send some signal to recognize we had a house phone. But that was after they said they didn't see the modem what so ever. 

When we called to have the modem set up, the tech said that they didn't see the device. The store tech had scanned it out and put it on our account, but all powered on, the technician we were talking to on our cell phones, did not see the modem. They saw our cable boxes and knew we just got a new one for the living room, but they just plain old couldn't see the modem. Nothing streaming in or out.

I asked if we needed to change the XFSetup thing - the device name and password, to what we had in the previous box. Maybe that's why they couldn't see the modem? I was told no, the modem name / password has nothing to do with the fact their computer can't see / talk to this device. 

Even though every time we've have to get a new modem, the first thing the call center tech does, is tell us to change that device name, or they would do it for us? Nothing to do with each other. 

The tech couldn't figure out what was wrong and said that a body will come out to us this week to fix the TV issue. The modem issue is a totally different horse. And that's something that really can't be fixed because they don't know how to... if they can't see the modem, it's like it doesn't exist. 

But we're paying for TV, Internet and Phone... surely there has to be a way to make everything play nice together. 

No clue. 

Saturday night, no internet or house phone. Therefore, everything we do on our cell phones are going thru Verizon's cellular data instead of being on VZW-WiFi. 

Good thing we have a new plan with unlimited data... lesson learned from when we first moved here... we racked up 3 months worth of phone time on our phones, when we shared a plan, and had to rely on our cell phones because Comcast couldn't get their act together and get the house phone line working correctly. It's August 2011 all over again.

There was a point on Saturday where I was just so frustrated at having talked to 2 techs and a store person, that I'm like "screw this; I'm back ending into the modem and I'm gonna get us Internet, at least". 

Sure enough, I followed instructions of how we used to have to change everything, and within 5 minutes, I had all our devices connected to the internet. I just couldn't fix the phone. 

Sunday, we tried calling again. Maybe someone different could help.

Same things happened - they couldn't see the modem, even though it was on, streaming internet, and we were still kind of pixelating with the TV. 

The Sunday call center people had us unplug things, including our cordless phones, because it's never Comcast's equipment that is failing, it's whatever you have plugged in to it.

Honest to god, that was the excuse the last time we had a phone issue (close to 2 years ago). All of a sudden, we were getting calls dropped, lots of noise within conversations, missed calls... you name it. Comcast said it's probably the phones we have that are causing the disturbance. Uh, no, actually, these are brand new phones. Comcast said it's not their equipment, everything looks fine on their end. They refused to do anything until we bought new stuff. 

So we did. 

And it still failed. 

I don't remember exactly what the problem was, but it was on their end and we didn't get anything - no apology, no nothing.

Now we're on a new modem, and the techs don't know why it's not working.

Monday we call again. My mother spoke with someone who was actually knowledgeable in what we were looking to fix. 

Come to find out, no one prior to this person had registered the phone line. 

Meaning, at some point, our phone line was deactivated and taken off the account. That's why no one could see the modem and when someone called us, there was a recorded message saying the phone number being called is no longer in service.

The Monday tech was able to fix the line and get our modem working. 

Amazing, but there was a catch... only seen after my mom hung up.

All incoming calls said "Name Unavailable | Private Number" on the caller ID. 

All calls. Not just those trying to spam our house.

Calls we accept from everyone, including our own cell phones.

So back on the 800 number we go. Try to fix it. 

This was... Tuesday, I think. Days seem to run in to each other. 

The people she spoke to couldn't understand why this was happening. We didn't either.

It was suggested to wait a couple days, maybe it will sort itself out. Problems can take any where from 5 minutes to 3 days to get sorted once they are fixed. So wait it out and see what the TV guy does for the cable box on Thursday.

Cable guy comes out and looks at the TV. Which, FYI / BTW, Comcast only sends technicians out to your house for whatever problem you're having. If you have a TV issue, you get a TV guy. If you have an Internet problem, you get an Internet guy. There's no service technician that will come out and fix all the problems you're having at once... so if you have a combo package and have problems with the TV and Phone, you're not getting 1 person to come out and fix both problems at once. You need 2 technicians to come out on two different days to fix each problem individually.... which is what we were told when we asked if the TV guy can fix the phone too. 

Plus, if there was a wiring problem for the cable, we are responsible for fixing the wires. As in, Comcast shows a problem within the walls of the house and they need to get the wires fixed... We need to hire someone to do wall work - take the wall apart for an electrician  (Comcast's?) have the wires fixed, then a builder to put the walls back together. If it's a street problem... I don't know... I'd think the community, but ultimately falls on us.

Problematic issues at best... just to sort out a broken image on a television and figure out a phone problem.

Thursday comes and the TV guy checks out the modem, the boxes, everything. Says there's nothing wrong with our equipment, but, he'll swap out the box in my mom's room for an updated one. 

A wireless one. 

What's a wireless set top box? 

It's a cable box that still has a power cord and an HDMI cable, but doesn't have room for a coax cable. 

Meaning, "you can travel with this box, if you wanted to", my mom was told. "And it doesn't eat up your data. It runs on WiFi". 

All she needs is a new HDMI cable (which, legit, was brand new the week prior. Plus the coax cable. Since she had run out to the Comcast store and asked for 2 new HDMI & Coax cables for the TVs). 

The guy ended up throwing out 2 new HDMI cables (my mom's room and the living room) plus a brand new coax cable. Because he felt the need to replace her bedroom box with a different one... that would what, make it more efficient? Have a better signal? What? 

He didn't switch out the new (problematic) cable box in the living room for a new one, but he threw out the new wires I used to connect everything... the same wires that came with the box, 5 days prior. 

Tell me how that's efficient and not a complete waste of materials! No wonder why there's a service fee for them to come out and troubleshoot.

Oh, yea... if they don't find any fault in their equipment, you have to pay a service call. If they find a problem, you don't pay. BUT, if the only problem is you having to need to be taught something, you're paying the fee. 

Coming and going...

This is turning into a TL;DR post and I know it. 

Things are "fixed" and the guy leaves. He didn't really find a problem, but since he changed a few things, it's a free call. He didn't know why the DVR recorded blocky pictures because one has nothing to do with the other. 

The phone line, on the other hand, is still reading out Unknown Name. So we call again Thursday night.

The tech does a refresh and says that in all reality, it can take 72 hours for things to fix themselves. So all the problems we've been having, is not the real fault of Comcast, but the technology. Sure, something can take a few minutes and get better, but they really tell people to wait it out and if nothing is okay by day 4, call back. 

Although, the random problem with the phone is the fact the TV isn't reading out the name and number as well. 

We used to be able to see who's calling when we watched something. Now we don't. 

Why? Because this is one of the fluke things that shouldn't be happening. It's a preowned thing, and not something we subscribe to.

What?

You know how I wrote that the boxes are refurbished and sometimes factory resets don't actually fully reset the device? 

Yeah, the previous owner of the cable box had the service feature of seeing the caller ID on the television screen. It's never been a feature in our own service... looking back at our history the past couple years. 

But.. but... even the last 4 boxes we got from Comcast... had the caller ID on the screen....?

Nope; it's always been a service of the previous owner. Not on ours. Even though my mother swears that part of our plan says we have it. 

Technician says otherwise, but can add it to our bill. Didn't tell us a price, however. Better be free.