If Motorola/Pace made the box, shouldnt they pay? I am not sure about the logistics of company box ownership works, but it seems to be that unless there was some sort of electrical surge over the cable line that did damage, that box problems would go back to the maker.
I asked a similar question regarding Verizon and Hurricane Sandy. Ideas were being expressed about Verizon's insurance paying to rebuild everything. Despite asking if anyone had facts, there was never any information that lead me to believe Verizon was insured. Likewise I'm skeptical that Comcast has insurance for incidents like this. Verizon and Comcast are large corporations and as such, they generally self insure.
As I also mentioned in my Verizon post, they might have what's called a "stop-loss" policy in that they self insure incidents up to a maximum ($1M or $1B or ???) and the stop-loss policy covers the rest.
Regardless, I do not believe insurance covered this unless someone from Comcast can tell me that they don't self insure. Even if they are insured, the cable box and TV loss are likely below the incident deductible.
...then having someone educate the woman and TV audience, not to mention the reporter, about the extreme unlikelyhood of a cable box spontanously "exploding".
I used to be a Comcast cable tech. A couple of years ago I saw something like this. **I found that the cable entering the house had not been properly grounded. *This caused multiple cable boxes & TV's in the house to die. I later heard that Comcast replaced the customer's TV's. (the boxes did not explode in my case)
Agreed but it said the explosion "damaged" her television set. I don't have the facts but if a capacitor went, it would seem as if the box "exploded". My initial assumption, as perhaps others, was that the TV was damaged by "cable box" shrapnel. It's more likely that nothing really "flew apart" and the damage was nothing more than the TV's input circuit (RF/Composite/HDMI) getting fried from an electrical surge.
And if her old TV was a CRTit's even more likely that it (being a high voltage,high capacidence device) fried the cable box. Cable boxes and other settops have reletively low capcity, even less than a basic flat screen tv (if she was happy with $300, it was a pretty basic tv)
Comcast (or their contractors) does disassemble boxes to repair/refurbish them. Once they disassemble a box, it voids any manufacturers warranties and releases the manufacturer of any and all liability. With the millions of pieces of CPE, it is almost impossible to track each piece of equipment. It is also possible a customer may have tampered with the box in hopes of stealing cable.
All my cable boxes/modems are plugged into surge protectors. And they are good quality surge protectors (not the cheap $10 specials from Walmart). My surge protectors come from Best Buy. My living room and bedroom TVs are plugged into surge protectors that cost over $80. My cable modem is plugged into a UPS as I also plug my laptop and iOS devices into the same UPS brick.
I seen several damaged LCD screens.. caused by... no less than Hot coffee.. the rising steam discoloring one of the several layers of film on the bottom of the LCD..
Yes, the Steam/electrolytic solution from a bursting capacitor can damage a modern TV.
And if her old TV was a CRT it's even more likely that it (being a high voltage, high capacidence device) fried the cable box. Cable boxes and other settops have relatively low capacity, even less than a basic flat screen tv (if she was happy with $300, it was a pretty basic tv)
From the video, it looks like the TV that was damaged was the old silver Sony CRT TV located in the cabinet under the cable box. The "spare" TV appears to be the smaller black CRT one located on the stand to the right.
Re: Eh, I actually agree with Comcast if two independent
Presumably.. Some medium to high voltage line dropped onto Comcast pole to pole connections.. (resulting in a neighborhood outage as reported..)
Any nearby weak links, like poor or corroded ground bonding's would expose the customer connected devices to that high voltage. Boom, no more cable box, TV and anything else connected to the setup via wire.. (tosh link would be ok)..
WE NO LONGER EMPLOY CONTRACTORS THAT BLOW UP YOUR HOUSE OR BURN THINGS DOWN! NOW OUR CABLE BOXES DO ALL THE WORK NECESSARY TO GIVE OUR CUSTOMERS THE CUSTOMER SERVICE THEY EXPECT!
*Service not available in all areas, esp. if you have fios or any real competition. If you have at&t, well, some exploding cable boxes is still better right?
Presumably.. Some medium to high voltage line dropped onto Comcast pole to pole connections.. (resulting in a neighborhood outage as reported..)
Any nearby weak links, like poor or corroded ground bonding's would expose the customer connected devices to that high voltage. Boom, no more cable box, TV and anything else connected to the setup via wire.. (tosh link would be ok)..
This is why I have my cable modem plugged into an APC UPS, my TV boxes into AC surge protectors, and replaced my ground block with a TII model 212 coaxial surge protector: »www.digicomm.com/tii210.pdf
I haven't had any problems with lightning storms or other potential HV surge sources yet.
That TV looks pretty old, 80's vintage. Usually there are safety capacitors to isolate the AV/Coax grounds from the chassis ground, but should one of the caps go bad and short a set with hot chassis there will be fireworks.
I think the unfortunate reality here is it just made sense for Comcast to 'quiet the issue' and pay for the replacement hardware when in fact there is a much greater chance the problem was actually on the customer's end. In fact some could suggest the electrical wiring in the customer's home damaged our equipment and therefore they would be responsible for replacement of our hardware. We of course know that's not the case and service providers have insurance for a reason which protects customers and the provider. Either way, Comcast did right by the customer and just took care of it themselves.
Or maybe it was one of those sleek, gray DCT1800 units, with (the then) state-of-the-art, separate "baseband [composite, SD] video and [stereo] audio" outputs! : »www.motorola.com/staticf ··· uide.pdf
I disagree 100% with you on this.. There are MANY factors that could have cause this damage. If the cable was installed according to NEC standards, then that rules out the actual cable. That leaves still quite a few items that can cause "damage" to any piece of networked equipment. Who's to say that it didn't happen in reverse and that the TV didn't hurt the box? or that the power company didn't cause the problem? etc? ... the reason why a company, such as Comcast, has to be careful in just rushing in to "do the right thing" is because "doing the right thing" sets a standard for every other "the cable box caused my problem" down the road. Quite honestly, from the story, this lady felt that the response time of 2 days was not good enough... so long as they responded with in the guides set for them then I am fine with their response. I have personally rolled on many calls similar this in my time and in all buy 1 case (a bad ground) the problem was at the fault inside the home and had nothing to do with the cable service in any way.
In general, this is how the blame game works:
If you're at a laundromat and your clothes fall apart, it must be the washer or dryer, not your 10 year old shirt.
If you're at a car wash and there's a scratch in your car, it's the washes fault, not the fact that you don't wash your car but once every 6 months and when the dirt was finally cleaned off you noticed that scratch.. and no matter if it's already got rust in the scratch, it's still the washes fault because they washed it.
If you ate out at a restaurant with a group of friends and the next morning you got sick, it's the restaurant's fault, even though the other 5 people didn't get sick (1 have even eating the same thing as you) and the fact you were already getting sick prior, it's still the restaurant's fault.
And if your TV has an issue or "explodes", even though you have power connected to it, a power strip, DVD Player, amp, game box, or any other number of devices, it's always the cable box or cable company at fault.. it has nothing to do with your older than dirt TV or any other piece of equipment.
I'm not defending comcast on this one and neither should anyone else because no one knows what happened here. But, the instant "blame the big guy" mentality gets no one anywhere and I also don't believe that Comcast should just pay-up just because it's "the right thing to do.. try that with the power company, people will often NEVER get anything out of them. IF the box failed, which is what is being said here, that doesn't make it "Comcast's fault".. it CAN mean that something they owned failed and it caused respective damage.. but like any piece of electronics, they're prone to fail. Motorola made the box, not comcast.
And for the above guy that said opening the box voids the warranty.. that doesn't stand here.. a warranty doesn't have anything to do with negligence which is, if at hand, what's important here. Comcast, I believe, stepped up and took care of their customer, but that's as far as I'll agree with anyone here.
When something this rare and wacky happens why do companies like Comcast fight it. The rep on site should have the authorization to to replace the TV (like up to $500) and the box, just so they can grab the old TV and Box to prevent anyone else from testing or monkeying with it. Over a year how many times does this happen on their plant? Not enough to risk the bad publicity.
I agree there are many factors, but I think the automatic assumption for most is that the provider is immediately at fault. I really don't believe many customers will be like 'hey can you check to see if the fault could have been on my end?' The upset and aggressive attitude will most often happen the very moment we call our provider and talk with the first person we hear from. Simply the fact that the article references the person being unhappy with having to 'wait 2 days' suggests there was already some initial assumptions.
You're dead on about expectations. The moment you set the precedence of hardly even verifying the cause, you are almost accepting fault even if it isn't. I wonder if the reason this is done is because without actually proving it, nobody can definitively say for sure that it was the providers fault. By accepting responsibility it's like taking the high road along with removing the ability to uncover the truth. Or, maybe the costs to hire an independent person to evaluate the situation simply aren't worth the possible outcome if it actually being the providers fault plus making it a long process for the customer.