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telijah
Premium Member
join:2013-04-22
Brandon, FL

telijah to TAZ

Premium Member

to TAZ

Re: [CFL] Contractor munimum standards?

"Fundamentally unsound"? It is the same logic as having multiple tiers of support. You cant have well paid in house tech to handle every single little issue to be worked on. Thats where the contractors come into play, to weed out the smaller/minor issues. It's terrible you have had bad experiences with a contractor, but again, this is not the case for many many other people. I've had BHN for Internet now at three locations throughout the Tampa Bay area, and in every location, when a contractor was sent for my first response on a service call, only once did I have a bad experience, but it was quickly resolved with the contractor still at my house by them making a simple phone call to BHN. As Gary mentioned, all that is needed to to inform him of these bad moments and it will get resolved. How that it so is really none of our business, but it is impractical to say the BHN should simly get rid of all contractor work.

And of course a big reason to use contractors is because they're cheaper. BHN is a business and last I checked, a business is still allowed to try and make a profit, but they're not doing it at the cost of customer satisfaction as you imply.

TAZ
join:2014-01-03
Tucson, AZ

TAZ

Member

said by telijah:

And of course a big reason to use contractors is because they're cheaper. BHN is a business and last I checked, a business is still allowed to try and make a profit, but they're not doing it at the cost of customer satisfaction as you imply.

And this is where the problem is. They're not cheaper because they're magic and more efficient than BHN themselves could be. They're cheaper _because they cut corners_.

Now, if BHN wanted, they too could have multiple divisions of techs, including the "idiot without a basic test set" level. The only reason they don't is because they'd rather be able to say "oh no, it isn't us that sucked, it's Random Cable Contracting Incorporated."

telijah
Premium Member
join:2013-04-22
Brandon, FL

telijah

Premium Member

If they're cutting corners, than do as asked and report it. I am sure it is not in the interest of BHN to intentionally piss off every customer who gets a contractor sent to their house and is likely not part of their agreement they have with the contractor in question.

TAZ
join:2014-01-03
Tucson, AZ

TAZ

Member

No, it's implicit. I've said it before: those contractors can not possibly do a better (or even same) job than BHN for less money.

This is really simple. All you're doing by having these contractors is adding another company in the middle who wants to make their profit too. BHN could employ people to do the same job with the same set of tools for less money and have that as a "tier 1, retarded cable techs" group, but as I said the only reason they don't is because they'd rather shift the blame off to some other company.

telijah
Premium Member
join:2013-04-22
Brandon, FL

telijah

Premium Member

said by TAZ:

No, it's implicit. I've said it before: those contractors can not possibly do a better (or even same) job than BHN for less money.

Please explain how this is not possible?

TAZ
join:2014-01-03
Tucson, AZ

TAZ

Member

Because cable contractors in any given area have one customer: the local cable company.

telijah
Premium Member
join:2013-04-22
Brandon, FL

telijah

Premium Member

That is certainly not true. Knight Enterprises is a BHN contractor with multiple customers. Thats just one example.

TAZ
join:2014-01-03
Tucson, AZ

TAZ

Member

I looked at their website, and while they appear to provide other, non-cable-related services like construction, camera wiring, etc., cable contracting is their main business:
quote:
The backbone of Knight Enterprises is our Installation Services department. With offices in five counties in Florida and deploying over 500 technicians, Knight Enterprises is the largest and most successful installation provider in the region. We were recently recognized by our partner, Bright House Networks, for our contribution to their being, "Ranked Highest for Residential Wireline Telephone Providers in the Southeast Region," as well as being, "Ranked Highest in Customer Satisfaction Among Residential Wireline Telephone Service Providers in the Southeast Region," by JD Power & Associates not once, but two times.
500 technicians. Now who would need most of those technicians besides Bright House?

In other words, if they're hiring people specifically for Bright House jobs, why doesn't Bright House just go hire themselves?

telijah
Premium Member
join:2013-04-22
Brandon, FL

telijah

Premium Member

Someone has to wire up new houses, refurbs and such as well.

As for BH hiring people themselves, that is likely tax purposes, same reason why call centers usually use contractors, it's legally easier for them to raise or lower their workforce using contractors without the heavy paper work, but that is speculation, like a lot of this thread.

TAZ
join:2014-01-03
Tucson, AZ

TAZ

Member

So this is what it comes down to: the individual people, contracted by Knight or whoever, have to be paid. It doesn't matter who's paying them, whether it's Knight (via BHN's payments) or BHN directly.

By hiring Knight who hires the contractors, BHN has added a middleman into the equation who is basically providing no useful service but will need a profit as well. (I'm sure BHN can afford to put up some Craigslist ads or whatever.) Obviously BHN's volume is enough where the contractor isn't providing any added value, they're just a useless middleman.

If this is about tax purposes, what stops BHN from hiring contractors themselves? They can pay them slightly less per-job than they're paying Knight or whoever. Cut out the middleman and save money.

The answer is exactly as I've stated the entire time: the contractors save money by cutting corners (passing that onto BHN) and it gives BHN some level of plausible deniability when "techs" show up without a basic tester.
scanman1
join:2010-11-25

scanman1

Member

I didn't realize when I posted this thread that it was standard practice to send a contractor out first that cost the cable company much less than a proper truck roll to send a monkey that knows just enough to re-terminate cable ends and blindly replace equipment.

Now that I have read the rage posters in this thread, I am looking at it from the cable company's point of view.....

The average customer is one beer short of a sick pack when it comes to technology and likely has no clue about why the remote don't work with a battery in backwards, or the fact that they can't let their dog chew on the cable behind the TV without it causing a problem.

Add on the fact that the cable company will recycle and redeploy modems/cable boxes that are used until they die with no regard to the years of use the equipment has had, the failure rate of the equipment is probably high enough that sending the "non-technician" to replace the box will probably solve a majority of the issues.

This will be a great cost savings for the cable company.

Then there are people like me that are not idiots, and OWN my own equipment and will not tolerate some fool that wants to come in and re terminate a connector and IMMEDIATELY proclaim that the modem is faulty with NO TESTING.

If you rent ALL of your equipment, it matters not that they change it out blindly. I.E. not troubleshooting. If the contractor spends 2 hours chasing his tail and replacing every splitter and connector in the residence it likely still saves the cable company.

Even if the contractor pulls boxes first, then somehow stumbles on the bad connection, they simply send the boxes back to the cable company for retesting and redeployment.

For people that are smart enough to purchase their own equipment, It's an insult to send a non BHN truck roll.

NO, It's not OK to replace my modem with a rental one without proving that my modem is faulty. This is the reason I started this thread.

I was not trying to start a troll thread, but I can see the fine line between cost savings and letting a contractor BLINDLY tell a customer to throw away a $90 investment in a Docsis 3 modem without even knowing what it looks like.

I'm sure BHN was not encouraging the contractor to do this to gain the extra $5 a month. Sure it was it $2, then $3, then $5 a month for the rental.

I recall BHXpert telling people when it was a small $2 fee, it would never be worth it to buy your own modem, as the total cost of ownership would not reach maturity before lightening hit it. Then as every service company does, they slowly increased the rental rate to the point that if you bought your own modem the day they decided to charge rent on the modem, you'd have it paid off by now.

If I rented all my cable boxes and modems, and was a good joe six pack, it would not matter if the contractor was on site for 2 hours changing every connector, splitter, and replacing every box until they finally got "lucky". Then if they "Gave Up" they would put in a ticket for a real BHN tech truck roll, as then it might actually be a problem from the drop cable to the tap or beyond into the network.

When It's a home run to a Customer owned modem with no other services, BHN should proceed with a proper truck roll, as the first thing a contractor wants to do is ELIMINATE THE CUSTOMER OWNED MODEM.

This is FLAT OUT WRONG.

I have worked in telco for over 17 years.

In comparison, lets look how a T1 is delivered.

There is a point called a "d-mark" and the telco even provides a test unit on a T1 at the point of delivery at the customers location that will allow for a remote test pattern to be sent that causes the telco's "smartjack" to loop up and allow testing of the network right up to the customers POE. If this test passes and the customer insists on a truck roll, there will be a fee paid if the fault is beyond the smartjack. There is also another test signal to loop the CSU(Customers end Unit/Equiptment). The Telco will attempt to loop up the CSU and inform the customer that they have a problem with the customer owned equipment if this loop test fails as it's an indication that the problem is beyond the service providers network. It could be the cable from the Smartjack to the CSU, but that is customer owned and maintained. A smart customer will then send for the customers contractor that is responsible for the PBX, as the carrier is not at fault and having the carrier come out will cause double billing as the PBX vendor as well as the carrier will need to be paid.

With a customer owned modem, there is no carrier equipment or point of d-mark for remote testing other than the modem being synced up and the CMTS polling the modem via SMTP on port 161.

If there is no sync, then it REQUIRES a test set to make a determination who's equipment is at fault.

This is my only gripe.

In this particular case, a BHN tech should ALWAYS be rolled to determine if the signal is good at the missing d-mark.

Mark80
join:2004-01-19
Lake Mary, FL

Mark80

Member

When I lived in a Charter service area, I think a contractor for them told me to contact him directly if I had problems after the install. Told me that they didn't get paid for the job if a Charter tech had to come back within 30 days or something. Not sure if BHN has a similar deal or not.
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mixdup
join:2003-06-28
Alpharetta, GA

mixdup to Mark80

Member

to Mark80

Re: [CFL] Contractor munimum standards?

The other thing to consider is many contractors are paid per job, not by the hour. The sooner they can get out of there the more money they make. Again, not sure if BHN pays its contractors that way but I assume they do (that's how it makes money for the cableco)

OSUGoose
join:2007-12-27
Columbus, OH

OSUGoose to BHNtechXpert

Member

to BHNtechXpert
Frankly, how your handling this, casts a bad light to any non-BHN person who may find this in a google search.
System

to scanman1

Anon

to scanman1
Friendly warning

Recent particpants in this topic are warned to be aware of site and forum posting rules. Warning cause: 'Personal attacks' (posts)
BHNtechXpert
The One & Only
Premium Member
join:2006-02-16
Saint Petersburg, FL

BHNtechXpert to scanman1

Premium Member

to scanman1
Guys I'm going to wrap up following this thread with this...

We expect our contractors to provide the same high quality experience our regular techs do. In the unlikely event that you have an experience that fails to meet your (and our) expectations I want you to let me know about it immediately. Do not delay, reach out to me the very minute it happens. Now you can do this either through the forums or diectly at BHNtechXpert@mybrighthouse.com

Thank you....
javamarket
join:2011-05-20

javamarket to scanman1

Member

to scanman1
Well I for one have had the unfortunately experience of a BHN outside contractor (also Jaguar). If anyone cares to review the episode (it was indeed a dreadful miniseries), a quick search for my posts will bring you there.

What I find most disturbing, however, are statements like and in the spirit of:
"No it's not and frankly it's inappropriate for you to comment on contractors meaning BHN that you have no experience with."
I don't know when BHNtechXpert self-appointed himself as the curator of all content BHN related including that in the public forum domain not the private channel, but I certainly don't subscribe and it is terribly unprofessional. The history of DSLReports is littered with timeless offers to help by this individual to his credit, but that doesn't make such an inflammatory remark where someone shares a point of view (irrespective of being a BHN customer) "inappropriate".

To BHN's credit, they try hard to correct what goes wrong, including BHNtechXpert. That said, the accosting that happens when you provide a viewpoint that isn't inline with their views is frightening.

Like many, living in an MDU the choice of ISP provider isn't at the individual consumer level. Had I the ability to change service providers today, I would absolutely do so. 80% based on the 3rd party contractor experience, 20% based on the overall disposition and cost of BHN.

In my view, and direct experience, there is no quality control of 3rd party contractors engaged with BHN. The only dynamic that would be worse would be if they claimed such quality control exists.

weaseled386
join:2008-04-13
Edgewater, FL

1 recommendation

weaseled386

Member

said by javamarket:

"No it's not and frankly it's inappropriate for you to comment on contractors meaning BHN that you have no experience with."I don't know when BHNtechXpert self-appointed himself as the curator of all content BHN related including that in the public forum domain not the private channel, but I certainly don't subscribe and it is terribly unprofessional. The history of DSLReports is littered with timeless offers to help by this individual to his credit, but that doesn't make such an inflammatory remark where someone shares a point of view (irrespective of being a BHN customer) "inappropriate".

If you're a K-Mart shopper why would you troll Walmart forums? Does it make sense to complain how Winn Dixie does something when the only basis of your experience is Kroger? If you drive a Ford does that make you an expert on Chevrolet?

telijah
Premium Member
join:2013-04-22
Brandon, FL

telijah to javamarket

Premium Member

to javamarket
Edit: ugh, retracting, don't want to keep stoking this fire. Dead horse is dead.
javamarket
join:2011-05-20

javamarket to weaseled386

Member

to weaseled386
If you don't compare prices and quality between (your example) K-Mart and Walmart then you are an uninformed shopper. Such is your choice but it sure isn't prudent.
Expand your moderator at work