said by washingtonpost.com:

---

Six Weeks Stuck In Comcast Limbo

By Don Oldenburg
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, June 14, 2005; Page C09

Like most Internet-dependent customers whose high-speed connection goes down, Apoorva Gandhi figured his service provider, Comcast, would have it up and running again soon after an interruption in March.

Annoying as they are, occasional server crashes are a fact of life online and Gandhi knew that. But six weeks later, he was still waiting for Comcast to fix his connection.

"It is ridiculous," says Gandhi, not related to the famous advocate of peaceful conflict resolution but showing similar patience and resolve. "It should be, I call once and then it's done. . . . But it was unreturned phone call after unreturned phone call."

A Bethesda business consultant who does much of his work from home, Gandhi can't afford to go without an Internet connection. Neither can his wife, Ruchi Sharma, who is starting a home-based interior design business. He loaded a free-trial America Online disc and reverted to using a dial-up connection while counting the days his high-speed service was down. "It was so slow," he says.

Gandhi says the first Comcast technician showed up in early April and told him "the 'drop' needed to be fixed and 'we'll get back to you' " -- corporate speak for don't call us, we'll call you.

When no one got back to him, he called Comcast once a day for four straight days asking to speak to a supervisor. No one returned his call, he says. He called Comcast's corporate office in Philadelphia, was assured the problem would be resolved immediately and was referred to a local Comcast executive who didn't return his calls. He again left daily messages for a week that weren't returned.

Comcast finally notified Gandhi that a technician would repair the problem the next day -- but no one came. He called Comcast and reported the technician didn't show up, but no one called him back. He called again and was "lectured" by a customer service representative who told him, "Sometimes things happen and our techs don't come out."

One Comcast customer service rep tried to help, but couldn't get higher-ups to call Gandhi back, so the rep finally recommended that Gandhi "drive in-person to the Comcast office and confront someone."

Comcast is one of Washington's largest ISPs, and nationally -- with 7.4 million customers -- it is the second largest provider next to AOL. Comcast has had technical and customer service issues before. In April, the company grappled with a network glitch that intermittently prevented customers nationwide from checking their e-mail accounts and accessing Web sites for hours at a time -- though Gandhi's problem wasn't part of that.

This month's issue of PC World magazine surveyed 6,000 of its subscribers about ISP customer-support satisfaction. Comcast received middling grades (behind Time Warner Cable's Road Runner and Cox, but ahead of AOL, NetZero and MSN's dial-up service). Forty-eight percent of those surveyed said they were "satisfied or extremely satisfied" with Comcast's customer support and technical support, while the top ISPs scored more than 70 percent satisfaction.

After "the six-week debacle," Gandhi says he found the names and e-mail addresses of Comcast's board members online and e-mailed a complaint to them. "I tried to work this from the bottom up," he says. But when that didn't get the problem solved, he adds, "I decided to work from the top down."

A Comcast regional vice president contacted him, apologized and said he would compensate Gandhi 12 weeks of credit for his Internet and cable service -- twice the length of the outage. By early May, Comcast fixed Gandhi's Internet connection.

Comcast wouldn't address Gandhi's problem fully on the record. Spokesman Jeanne Russo e-mailed a statement: "We regret what happened in Mr. Gandhi's case and have offered him our sincere apologies. We want to stress that this was an unfortunate but isolated situation.

"Over 90 percent of our customers tell us that they'd recommend our service to their family or friends -- and we believe this is a great testament to how they feel about Comcast and the service we provide."

Gandhi doesn't count himself among that 90 percent.

"What I told them is, I feel like I've been wronged and here's their opportunity to do the right thing," says Gandhi, who wanted a year of free service. "To go through what I went though, they have a very unhappy customer."

---

said by DonLibes :

So the committee as a whole didn't even know the hearing was taking place until it was over. In fact, most of the committee didn't even know what the commission was or the whole complaint process until last night when the Cable Office gave them a walk-through of the complaint process.

said by DonLibes :

Speaking of which, the Cable Office said that complaints were up substantially recently. I don't have the figures in front of me but it was an astonishingly huge jump, related to service calls (not billing, which has historically been the lead). Jane Lawton (Cable Office Administrator) said that they were considering assessing fines due to the severity.

January    72
February   82
March      82
April      76
May        45
June       68
July      114
August    102
September 110
October    90
November   83
December   91
-------------
Total   1,015

said by Douglas Tallman, Gazette Staff Writer, July 13, 2005 :

---

Council renews cable commission

A commission that hears complaints about cable companies will continue to exist, but legislation that would have extended its jurisdiction failed after debate Tuesday by the Montgomery County Council.

The debate flummoxed supporters of the plan, who were expecting easy passage.

"I'm disappointed because I think folks were reading it wrong," said Councilwoman Marilyn J. Praisner (D-Dist. 4) of Calverton.

Organized in May 2003, the Cable Compliance Commission has five members who meet monthly to rule on subscriber complaints that have not been resolved by the county's Office of Cable and Communication Services.

Legislation authorizing the commission was to run out in December, and on Tuesday the council passed a three-year extension.

Stripped from the extension was a provision that would give prospective subscribers the right to bring complaints to the commission. That provision is what sparked the controversy.

Non-subscribers have tried to use the cable franchise agreement to force Comcast to provide cable service to their neighborhoods.

Councilman Steven A. Silverman (D-At large) of Silver Spring called the provision a "sham" because it would not help residents who want cable television extended to their homes. That power rests only with the Office of Cable and Communication Services.

"What I don't like is legislation that says it does something that it doesn't," Silverman said.

Four other council members -- Michael J. Knapp (D-Dist. 2) of Germantown, Michael L. Subin (D-At large) of Gaithersburg, Nancy M. Floreen (D-At large) of Garrett Park and Howard A. Denis (R-Dist. 1) of Chevy Chase -- agreed, and the provision was stripped.

Praisner said the commission can weigh individual cases. When the cable office issues orders, it is looking at cumulative cases, she said.

The move comes just as the number of complaints has spiked against Comcast, the politically connected company providing cable and Internet service to 200,000 Montgomery County homes.

For the first five months of 2005, the company averaged about 100 complaints. But in June, the number rose to 265, and 106 have been received for the first 12 days of July, according to cable office data.

A company representative could not be reached for comment, but Comcast officials have blamed service interruptions on Verizon employees and contractors as that company lays wire to extend its network. Verizon officials did not return calls.

Comcast service will be the subject of a July 25 meeting of the council's Management and Fiscal Policy Committee in Rockville.

---