 Morac
join:2001-08-30
Riverside, NJ
kudos:1
 ·Comcast
1 edit | Partially a training issue as well. When I got my TiVo S3 I had a Comcast contractor come out to install them. This is how it went. He brought out 3 cards. The first one when inserted spit up an error meaning the card was bad. The 2nd card (first slot) one brought up the pairing screen and he phoned into the office and read off the numbers and all was well. The third card (second slot) also brought up the pairing screen, but when he called in it didn't work right away. It turned out that the card was upgrading it's firmware, but the card diagnostic screen on the screen didn't indicate it was doing so (this screen is populated with info provided by the cards). The whole process from arrival to leaving took about 4 hours and he said it was one of the better installs he's seen. While time consuming, it isn't something I couldn't have done myself. In fact I have done it myself.
A few months later I started seeing macro-blocking on calbe channels on one of my S3's tuners (which turned out to be caused by the amp on OTA antenna being too high). In order to eliminate the card as a problem I swapped the cards between the 2 slots. This broke the pairing, but it should be as simple as calling in to have them re-paired right? Well this is where the fun begins.
I called in and spoke to a technician who said he could re-pair the cards and put me on hold for a minute. He came back and said the software to do the pairing was down for maintenance and that I should call back later.
The next day I call back and ask to have my cards re-paired. The lady on the phone tells me that it isn't possible to do so over the phone and that I need a tech visit. I tell her she's wrong and eventually ask to speak to a supervisor. The supervisor tells me there is no way to pair the cards over the phone. After talking to this person for over an hour I hang up.
I call back and get another lady in the same call center (Florida, I asked) and told her I needed to get my cards re-paired. Again I was told that wasn't possible. I was insistent and eventually (after making me give the last 4 digits of my social security number,) she relented. I gave her my 3 numbers for card #1 which she entered and then sent a hit on the card and the card stared working. She repeated this for card #2 and it started working. The whole process took less than 5 minutes.
So to do something that should have taken 5 minutes, I was forced to make 3 calls totaling over 2 hours of phone time and give out personal information. This is definitely not a hardware problem, but either a training or policy issue.
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