Wow. I'm having the exact same problem with Comcast right now. My internet is completely screwed and they just can't manage to find whats going wrong with it. I guess its only a matter of time before they do the same thing to me.

I hope there's some other cable company in town you can switch to.

This may not be applicable, but I had an extremely difficult problem with my DSL connection a few years ago that I spent hours upon hours debugging. Ultimately, it turned out to be caused by my moronic ISP (Cavalier Telephone) double booking my static IP. So, if you happen to have a static IP, make sure they aren't doing that to you too.

sounds like it is time to swich to satalite and naked dsl

I'm the guy they talk about in this article.

The only DSL available is a fraction of the speed... and I've ordered a dish, but I'll miss the SuperBowl, as DTV gave me an install date of Feb 10th.

I had a problem with my Cox randomly dropping (i know, that sounds funny). They eventually determined it was a defecive Motorola Surfoard Modem that the wireless was interfearing with. They said the older ones (model 6020.. i think) weren't properly insulated and they upgraded me to a new one and it worked fine after that.

hope this helps.

Go directly to the local government that granted them a monopoly and file a complaint. The only way to get their attention is to threaten their monopoly.

They were right to cancel this dudes cable he sounds like a pain in the neck

We had big problems with Internet and HD signal for months (with Comcast). Tech after tech came in to do this or that; some told me it was my cable (not shielded well enough), others said it was my computer, my router, my power supply, my OS, etc. It turned out that someone sheared a cable underground when they rebuilt the road leading into our subdivision, which was about a quarter-mile away. Comcast stepped up and eventually gave us a $400 credit.

I had a similar problem as well that took three weeks to fix. They kept wanting to test inside my home, even though before they had admitted the problem was an outside line and other people in my neighborhood were reporting the same problems.

But of course every time I called they made me do the same song and dance to test my equipment.

I finally saw them outside replacing the line, and my connection has worked fine ever since.

Why it took them three weeks of my complaining daily to fix the problem is beyond me.

15 months? Good lord. I'm still stunned that people put up with this crap for so long. Granted, I'm the kind of guy who would rather do without than get something half-assed, but shesh...

@headon: So cable companies should cancel people's service instead of providing what they're legally obligated to provide?

@headon: Their service was a pain in the neck. What did you expect the guy to do? Just pay for a mediocre internet?

The police escort is the most hilarious part. You can tell some hysterical pencil-pusher freaked out at the idea that some customer actually demanded the company do their job and got the idea that because of this, that person must be insane and a threat.

@headon: You work for a consumer advocacy group, don't you?

@rbb: And the state AG, and consider filing one with your police chief too.

I'm not saying any of that. I'm just saying the guy sounds like a pain in the ass that's all. He's not happy with brighthouse they're not happy with him. Now he'll he get other service and both go away happy. Badda boom badda bing. Next case please.

@headon: He is not happy because they're not doing their job. BrightHouse responded with a temper tantrum instead of getting to the bottom of the problem.

If demanding minimum standards of service is a 'pain in the ass', maybe its time for the local franchise commission to pull BrightHouse's license and let some other cable company that is only slightly less incompetent take over!

Had the EXACT same problem with Comcast a year ago. It took 20 service calls, a new line laid from the street to my house, and accusations that "old tv's in the neighborhood were causing feedback in the cable lines" before it was finally diagnosed that it was actually a problem with their ancient cable splitter box out on the street.

The reason it took so long for them to actually believe that it was the problem was that I was the ONLY person in a 2 block radius using high speed internet via Comcast and that "they hadn't received any other complaints regarding service from my area."

@Bellor: EECB... I did it, and though they are still working on the problem a month later, THEY ARE WORKING ON THE PROBLEM... and its tons better!

Because they are not a fully private entity, they may actually not be able to legally cancel your service in this manner. I would contact the local service commission and see what rules they have in place. I know that in my city, they treat cable like a utility and it cannot be canceled as long as the bill is paid. If they do, they can lose their exclusive contract with the city.

dude, i checked your website. you are streaming a live scanner. thats against the terms of the cable service. you loose, good day sir.

@headon: I'd like you apply my fist directly to your forehead.

Whenever I have trouble with Mediacom, I always take the router out of the living room and hide it. They always want to pin the problem to the router. It's exactly as you said it - a wild goose chase. They want so dearly to not have to admit fault that they throw in this 'reasonable doubt' as to what the problem is, so you spend at least a little time and money trading out all your parts. Then by that time, you have to work with someone else!

@babaki: He said that the site is hosted somewhere else.

I had a fantastic problem with Comcrap last year...

My internet stopped. It just stopped cold. Analog and digital cable TV worked fine. My Surfboard just wouldn't connect.

Numerous phone calls and web chats to Comcast support ensued. They could see my modem but it wouldn't connect. They advised me to get a new modem. Since mine was about 5 years old I figured what the hell.. so I took the new modem home, hooked it up, and called Comcast to re-provision.

Same thing. They could see it but not connect to it.

Frustrated, I called my friend Tom who is their head head-end technician. He was able to easily find out what happened---a signal leak was detected at my residence and the internet was blocked. He had it "temporarily" restored and told me to contact Comcast to have a tech come out and find the leak.

But when I called Comcast they wouldn't send out a tech because "it was now working perfectly".

I moved a few months later... so I don't know what came out of it. I do know that when I called Comcast again to get a credit for the three weeks I was out, I got an earful for calling my friend to fix the problem instead of "customer support". She stopped when I offered to email her pages of online chat transcripts with "customer support" telling me nothing was wrong except for "maintenance in the area"

@macinjosh: yeah, the site is hosted somewhere else, but the scanner is streaming from his home. it doesn't where the web page is coming from, the streaming media he has is coming from his cable connection. go on his website and check it out. he even explains that his scanners are down for some unknown cable connection reason and links it to this post.

@babaki: Hey genius, you're redirected to [heliosj.iddings.us] which is NOT being hosted on his home connection. You LOSE, good day, sir.

ok. ok. ok. ok.. do you think the scanner is sitting layeredtech.com with a wire to their hosting servers? no. its sitting at his house, connected to his PC streaming media. i don't know how better to explain this to you. the scanner comes from his house. not the air. the physical scanner is streaming directly from his connection. check his site if you don't believe me. he even explains it, clear as day, right there.

They refunded money to you, correct? That means you have legal standing. They acknowledged that the problem was on their end, and not on yours. This also establishes that your claims were neither baseless nor unsubstantiated. You have legal recourse. Have fun in small claims court. Squeeze them for every filthy, crust-covered penny.

headon should be renamed headupazz

Brighthouse sucks, they refuse to troubleshoot anything over the phone anymore regardless of the issue. I had to get a new TivoHD so all that needed to be done was the cablecard host ID needed to be updated, they refused and sent out a technician to come into my house, call back to brighthouse and read the numbers off my TV screen. If I had a choice I would switch but DirecTV in the summer when it rains daily here in Orlando sucks as well.....

Check headon's various comments on Consumerist. He has yet to make a single constructive one -- just likes to be an ass.

They have a lawyer who's obviously clueless, yea sue them to see what kind of settlement they offer.

I hate to say this (because the armed police response is a little extreme), but since Brighthouse is spending a lot of time on our "victim" and even giving him $500 in credit, our "victim" is a very expensive customer for them to maintain. If a customer becomes a hassle to the point of no longer being profitable, why should a company keep them? If the company were burning your money, left and right, and you felt you were paying a lot more than the service warranted, wouldn't you work to drop the contract? Why should the supply side of a business be different from the demand side.

Bottom line: Police escort was wrong, dropping lil Jeffey was probably the right business move. And really, BrightCove (and everyone else) is out to make money.

@PotKettleBlack: And I'd agree with you, but they made constant promises that the problem would be resolved to 'stick with them'. I did... and now this is how they treat me.

...apply directly to the forehead.

I just don't understand why he wouldn't let them have access to his own equipment regardless of what he thought they wanted to do so for. It would just raise suspicion, and i would just assume that something fishy was going on in terms of the router. I would also assume that having that redirected website (which technically it is) is something that is against their policy. So you violated two company policies, and were disgruntle, and why does this article just not say exactly what the problem with your service is. It just eludes to something about upload speed not to par. If i ran the company i would drop you too.

@PotKettleBlack:
BrightCove has a deal with the local municipality to use infrastructure in exchange for selling their services. You are correct that dropping expensive customers is a business decision, but there are some caveats when the government is giving you a monopoly on the lines. Imagine an electric company dropping you because you complain about brownouts.

I have had the same issues with Craplevision. Every time in rains, my service gets worse and drops. Since I have a bundle with phone, internet, and cable, I never know whats gonna drop off. Over 10 visits to my house before they acknowledged that its probably the line buried in the street. Did they did up the line and replace it? No, they continue to tell me its the wiring in my house, even though their meter at the box in the street shows low input. Every time they show up, they need to check the signal in the house and the box across the street. The techs all tell me its the buried cable, but because I'm the only one complaining, it ain't gonna be dug up. Every time they came by, they wanted to check in the house. I finally told them to F+++ Off. I couldn't wait for their "fix", so I purchased a $90 booster and placed in on my line. Now I don't lose any signals.

@PotKettleBlack:
If Brighthouse would fix the problem the first time, he wouldn't have any reason to call. This reminds me of the story last summer about Sprint canceling customers who called excessively. Same thing; fix the problem the first time and they go away.

Reminds me of my problems with Charter. My Internet connection and cable TV went out EVERY time it rained. After repeated calls, they gave up and said it must be my fault. I didn't believe it, so I went out to the apartment cable box. The line from the street to the cable box was LAYING ACROSS THE GRASS IN PUDDLES, with lawnmower marks all over it.

After calling the techs again, I was told this is impossible, and that it was still my fault. I then sent pictures of the line and the box. They said I faked them, and told me it was still my fault.

Needless to say, I or my family and friends haven't done business with Charter since.

Forget all of that -- Call up Orlando/Altamonte Springs' Franchise department. After all, it's the city who granted BrightHouse (owned by Time Warner, BTW) permission to be the monopoly in the area.

I'm not sure if a cable co actually is legally allowed to refuse to serve a customer whose account is not in default due to their franchise agreement with the city.

@FLConsumer: There's almost zero regulation of the cable industry in Florida. The public service commission considers them a 'deregulated' industry. My local city and county franchise have no conditions, so it's nothing more than a business license.

The only recourse I seem to have is the Department of Agriculture (Consumer Affairs Division) and they can only act as a mediator, they have no power.

-Jeff (the guy mentioned in this article)

Having a dynamic service and even redirecting can be considered hosting, If you didn't think so either you would have not ceased doing it. When I had problems with my DSL line like that and everytime they wanted to start off in my house if I were to tell them the problem isn't in my house and deny them access they would have packed up and left. I had about 30 calls over a year with my DSL once cable became available I switched.

@nox: I ceased doing it because I didn't need that cluttering up the grander point. And when is the last time you heard of someone losing their Internet connection for 'hosting' a site without at least some warning? It was filler in his letter, at best.

I had offered to purchase the business class service in March 2007 and I was told to wait until they had finally resolved my signal problems.

Saturation

Saturation

Saturation

Keep that phrase in mind when you call your broadband provider regarding a variable poor service problem.

The providers continue to sell service. As the providers really don't have a clue as to the predictive volume of usage by any individual user, the provider will continue to sell service until usage reaches 100%. At that point selling of service is suppose to be suspended until the service equipment is upgraded.

Voice of experience. I had really solid 3mps DLS during business hours up to about 3PM, at which time speed would suddenly drop and by 4PM I was getting less than 125K. Poor speed would remain until about 9PM at which time the speed would increase and by 11PM I would be back up to 3mps service.

Can't figure out what was happening? Kiddies coming home from school and getting on the net. My local service was "saturated".

Of course my provider blamed me, my computers yada yada ..... until I could demonstrate the time intervals which had problems and the field techs could document the saturation problem at the same time during the day.

I got 6 months free service out of my provider. Personally I would have liked an appology for arguing with me, but alas the best I could get was 6 months free service.

Jeffrey should contact the local cable franchise board or whomever (I learned about this position from the Consumerist).

Then, I would contact, probably the mayor's office or the police chief and make sure that tax dollars weren't used for the unnecessary police escort.

@babaki: Did you miss the part where the police came and disconnected his service? How, then, do you propose he is using this disconnected service to stream to the internet?