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| [CA] What is the normal service outage time? I have had a complete cable outage since Friday. I do not even know if someone is going to work on my problem by Tuesday. I am in Sun City, CA. Does anyone know what the normal service restoration time is? Below I am including an e-mail I sent to customer support. It just better explains my situation.
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Dear Customer Service,
I have had cable service with Mediacom for about four years. Until this very moment, I had not seriously considered switching my TV service to another provider. But this weekend has left me in a quandary trying to find a legitimate reason not to switch. Here are just a few facts:
Your service is more expensive than comparable service from satellite.
With satellite, I can actually get the Bravo channel. A channel you advertise but do not actually have available (at least not in my service area).
With satellite, the BET channel will actually broadcast the shows at the times the on-screen guide identifies not three hours earlier.
With Satellite when I order a pay-per-view using the on-screen guide, the order is actually placed and the event actually becomes available. Unlike 40% of the time with Mediacom where after I order the pay-per-view, I still have to call on the day of the event to actually get the event.
Most importantly when satellite service fails on Friday, I do not have to wait until Monday to have any hope of getting service restored!
So what is happening at this very moment to motivate me into letting you know just how foul a mood I am in and how violated I feel? Normally, I am not home on Friday nights so I tape a number of television shows. (e.g. The Business and Monk). I am then able to watch those shows during the course of the following week. This Friday, I happened to come home early and discovered that my taped shows where filled with snow. Once I determined that the problem was truly the cable feed into my home, I called customer support. I accepted that I would not have cable service Friday and knew that I would miss my shows. Two of which were season finales. Things happen. The world is not perfect. Chalk one up to Murphy’s Law.
Saturday rolls around. I recognize that it would not be reasonable to expect my service restored too early, but I call customer support to make sure that someone will attempt to work the problem. I go about my day and find that by Saturday night, I still do no have any cable service. Not only do I not have any service, I do not have any information regarding whether or not someone has even attempted to address my problem. Guess what? I call customer service again to get status. Customer service basically tells me that the person assigned to my work order did not get around to it.
Ok. It could have been a busy day and there simply were too may issues that needed to be addressed. The result, I did not have any cable service on Statuary. Oh by the way, there was a UFC pay-per-view on Saturday that I probably would have ordered.
Sunday makes its presence known. This is a big TV day. DeadWood, The 4400, The Dead Zone, BrotherHood. At least two of which where season finales. Now I know that expecting the cable service too early is again not reasonable. I am however hoping that by say 5pm, I’ll have access to this overpriced service that I have paid on-time every time for the last four years. Guess What? No service. No status about the nature of the problem. Nothing. All of the shows missed. To add a cherry on top, I do not even know if someone even looked that the problem. Yet, I guess I am supposed to feel that I have been served well. I guess I am supposed to just believe that everyone did the best they could and there is just no way this could have been handled better. I guess I am supposed to believe that this same problem would have played out the same way with Direct TV or Dish Network.
Guess What? I know better! This level of service is horribly unacceptable. If my problem will not be fixed, at least have the courtesy of letting me know ahead of time. If no one is even going to look at the problem, tell me that as well. I believe Mediacom can do better. I hope you try.
Show where do I stand? I need my service restored. Sooner is better than later. Will I follow many of my neighbors and give another service provider a chance? I do not know. I can tell you this. I hope that my experience is truly an anomaly. Because if it is not, Mediacom is going to have a problem the minute FiosTV becomes available. Believe you me, once that baby is available, there is going to be true competition. Every service you offer, they have plus more. Even though I have no love for Verizon, they have never left me without service for more than a day. Clearly, that is not true of Mediamcom.
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| You need to call them ASAP. Explain you have been out, and in most cases they will get out within 24 hrs. If your service is out, always call. If it's an outage, it will be up within hours, if it's not an outage, they will be out within 24 hrs, sometimes the same day. | | |
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 burner50Helping Darwin WINPremium,VIP
join:2002-06-05
Cowtown
kudos:1
 ·inmotionhosting
| reply to mmcomuser1
IDK ABout Sun City CA but here in Fort Dodge IA we only have 1 shift of techs. We tyry to avoid rolling on a single no pic if possible because if we went on all of them there would be no pint in ahving a weekend, the on call tech would just be out all weekend. When did they tell you for an arrival time?
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Shut up you little potlicker, or I'll throw you in the microwave! --Reese Bobby | |
 wafenMr woogiePremium,Mod
join:2001-02-01
Maplewood MN
kudos:1
1 edit | reply to Anon
Re: [CA] What is the normal service outage time? Let's get back to helping the OP or step aside. | |
 marigoldsGainfully employed, finallyPremium,MVM
join:2002-05-13
Saint Louis, MO
kudos:1 | reply to mmcomuser1
Re: [CA] What is the normal service outage time? What happened to you is not reasonable.
For a full service outage, a tech should have responded within 12 hours, much less a whole weekend.
Since you called, unless the problem is determined to have not been Mediacom's fault they must refund you for your TV outage for all days out (they are not required to refund cable internet). Depending on local law, this may even require a full month refund.
Do not use email. TV customer service only processes those email once a day at most. Call video support during the daytime, and only video support. If you do not have a call scheduled for within 4 hours of the time you call, call your franchise authority.
You should not have accepted that cable service would not be restored the day it went out. It should be restored within 4 hours or you should have a reason why it would not be restored. At the very least, you should have had a scheduled appointment withint 24 hours. This is different from a bad picture or bad channel situation. A full outage must take priority (even if a single subscriber). Your problem was not addressed as if it were an outage. For almost all franchise authorities, this is a violation of local law. (One big difference, there is no law requiring Direct TV or Dish to address outage problems, nor requiring them to give refunds.)
Sun City is not an incorporated area, so I have no clue who holds the franchise for your area. I cannot locate a franchise agreement for Riverside County. The franchisors phone number should be on your cable bill though.
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ISCABBS - the oldest and largest BBS on the Internet
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burner50Helping Darwin WINPremium,VIP
join:2002-06-05
Cowtown
kudos:1 Reviews:
·inmotionhosting
| Ouch,
I can tell you from an on-call techs POV that i will try my hardest to get you to wait until monday. Just because i'm a cable tech doesnt mean i dont have a life  There are areas where there are only 2 or 3 techs taking the on-call rotation so every other or every third week you are on-call. I have done the every other week thing before....its no fun....We get the pools cleaned out before quitting time on friday and hope everything else can wait until monday.
And the offical policy in my area AFAIK is that Single no-pics that come in before 8pm we roll on but i am not required to roll on a single no pic after 8pm. Thats all OT and it doesnt help the cable rates any.
--
Shut up you little potlicker, or I'll throw you in the microwave! --Reese Bobby | |
marigoldsGainfully employed, finallyPremium,MVM
join:2002-05-13
Saint Louis, MO
kudos:1 | reply to mmcomuser1
It's not the techs' fault. The franchise should hire one-2 more techs (and more importantly, pay techs better for completing training, but that's a whole different issue).
The policies do vary depending on the time of the calls and the number of outs (for example, I bet if there are three or more calls for the same area, the calls are investigated even if after 8 pm). In the situation above, assuming the original poster called around 6 pm the first time and probably during daytime hours the other time, then the local franchise had a responsibility to have enough tech time to respond.
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Professional Geographer
Geographic Information Science researcher | |
cbt
join:2006-08-17
Harvest, AL | reply to mmcomuser1
i am not sure what part of a dream world most cable techs live in , but when it comes to the customer who is ultimately the one who pays our checks every two weeks, then if there cable is out even if a single out it gets ran the same day it comes in,at least that is our policy where in the area i work. all the same it is the call center's responsibility to let the tech know that there is a cable out because as far as i know there are not many psychic-cable techs to know when there is a cable tech. also too in our part of the woods when we are on call we run trouble calls , not just outs on the weekends, including sunday as well. we all as techs work in the service industry, and service doesnt stop at our convenience. | |
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