So I’m sitting there at about 12:30 pm on the phone with my boss and the line goes dead. I look over and see that the cable modem online light is out. I unplug the modem and wait about 15 seconds. Plug back in and it’s still out.
When it doesn’t come back in a few minutes I call Comcast. The guy checks and sees that a number of modems in my area are offline. Good, I think. It’s an area outtage. Not so fast. If my neighbors don’t call in a problem then it’s just my problem until they do. If enough people call in the same area it triggers a network alert and they’ll do something like a reboot. Otherwise all I can do is wait for my appointment tomorrow morning.
What did they expect me to do? Knock on doors to find out if my neighbors are having trouble?
The good thing is that the tech support guy didn’t speak to me like I was an idiot. He asked me if I power cycled the modem and when I knew what he meant without asking he was great to talk to. Rare. Usually these guys start by explaining to me what the power outlet looks like.
Good conversation but I’m still typing this from my cell phone (so excuse typos, I’ll catch them tomorrow).
Update: My modem came back online at around 8 pm, just as mysteriously as it disappeared. I guess some neighbors finally called.
Judi Sohn 
4 responses to “Comcast penalizing me for having working neighbors?”
I had to RMA a D-Link router a couple of weeks ago. When I got escalated to tier 2 one the tech asked me to unplug the router. Then he asked me to verify a number on the power adapter.
Of course, the number is on the plug side of the adapter, so I had to unplug _that_ to read it. I know he was just making sure I unplugged the correct adapter, so like a good customer trying to get an RMA, I played along. But it still ticked me off.
Judi,
What do you use to update your blog on your smartphone?
Austin
My phone runs Windows Mobile 5 phone edition so I just use the browser to go to my editor page as if I were on my desktop. It’s painfully slow but it works. I’d love a full-featured but light editor for PocketPC but so far I haven’t found anything worth taLking about.
Picasa web albums: first look
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