You'd Think Comcast, A Cable Company, Would Be Better At Installing Cable
Amy, a student at UC Davis, has just learned one of the lessons that one inevitably learns at college. Cable companies are simply not very good at what they do. Take, for example, the "finished" installation of some cable outlets in her apartment.
Amy says:
I know you guys like to rip on Comcast, and now I better understand why. Yesterday, one of my three apartment mates had cable installed in her room. The guy took 2 and a half hours to do everything, which didn't make sense to me, because we've had Comcast cable before so everything should have been all ready to go. And then he left the outlets in the other rooms undone, and even ripped into my wall (see attached photos). And this is the "finished" job. I'm sure my landlord will be pleased.
Yikes. You might want to consider sharing these photos with Comcast HQ-- be sure to request that the damage to your apartment be repaired and the outlets installed properly.
This is a test using rich text formatting and html links. It's the generic "company" ad that should appear on all posts with the Company category if they don't have an ad attached to a specific company.
Post a comment
Comments:
Wow. Just wow.
The worst part about this is she and her roommates are going to be on the hook for the drywall repairs when the lease is up :(
Very efficient worker. Takes great skill and planning to screw up so much so fast.
the thing about this is the hire outside contractors to do this work. For example cleatus and his wife branden and just slap a magnetic comcast sign on their ford truck.
Quality craftsmanship right there, I love the artistic use of barrel connectors. Comcastrophie indeed.
the thing about this comcast hires outside contractors for this work. FOR example cleatus and his wife breandeen with a magnetic comcast side on the side of the pickumup truck. Anyone can become a comcast installer anyone.
In that last photo, it's like the wallplate is just an ornament hanging off the cable.
thats why you have the install done by professionals. i have always done all my home wiring. phones, cable, satellite. im not gonna trust my biggest investment (house) on some loser installer guy who's biggest concern is getting out of there as fast as possible. i bet she paid extra for that installation too.
This "professional" installation that is done by all of these companies needs to stop. This is just flat out atrocious. What person would honestly call themselves a professional after all that? You should have posted the installers name on the article and hope that he is capable of feeling shame.
Directv is no better. Their "professional" installation doesn't include going down the walls. How the hell else are you supposed to do a professional job without doing that? That's why I wired my house myself and just had the guy put up and point the dish.
That's like expecting the government to be good at governing....
"You'd Think Comcast, A Cable Company, Would Be Better At Installing Cable"
Did she tip?
new business idea - follow comcast trucks around and when they leave, go up to the door and offer drywall repair
getting the landlord to go after comcast for repairing the installation is probably more effective than the OP and her roommates doing it.
@JohnDeere: Same here. It's actually not hard, just time consuming and back-breaking, and occasionally hot when you're up in the attic trying to fish wire down a wall. But I've had cable and phone guys come into my house before and make a pretty bad mess of it and I'll never let that happen again.
So...did anyone say anything to him about this or did he just say bye and leave?
If you're gonna screw something up, don't go half ass. Comcast is a perfect example of doing that very well.
@NefariousNewt: Apparently you've never installed cable before. While yes, I will agree.. it isn't rocket science by an means-it does take some skill. It also can be time consuming by no fault of your own. For example-for Comcast to provision a DVR box in some areas-its a 45 minute call to dispatch. Or to add an outlet in some systems... you have to spend an hour on the phone to get the "ok" to do it etc.
I know it seems very cut and dried for most people and being in the business in the past reminds me what a hole of a business cable is...Fact is, it sucks just about as much as anything else these days.
She should leave a nastygram on her Twitter and wait for the Comcast troll to contact her... Seems to work for most everyone else!
At least they didn't run the cables through the sewer main like they did for this poor woman.
What happened to the "Comcatastrophe" tag? That was my favorite!
As mentioned by posts above me, the problem is that many of these huge companies hire local contractors to do their installations. Satellite companies do the same. That's why I can't understand when cable companies criticize satellite providers for doing the very same thing. In my area, at least, I'm served by a local company and all their trucks and vans have the company's logo on it. They're all employees of the company.
This girl needs to contact Comcast directly and threatened them to report them to the BBB unless they make repairs. She should also get her landlord involved so she won't get slapped with "repairs" charges when she moves. Comcast can't afford another bad post to the BBB. I did it with Best Buy when they were trying not to honor my 1 year warranty on some computer hardware.
Oh, come on... It looks like a perfectly good job to me... If the house was in NAMIBIA!
That's simply awful. I'll stop complaining about my scratched aluminium siding and crooked outlet jacks from now on... (All courtesy of Comcast as well).
a lot of times, they don't even bother with a wall plate.
they just drill a hole and be done with it.
When I had cable installed in my home last year, after paying Comcast over $100 for a professional installation, the guy they sent wanted to drill holes directly through my newly refinished hardwood floors instead of installing outlets in the walls. When I insisted he do it the right way, he said he didn't know how to and left.
I really hope Amy pushes Comcast to make this right. There's no excuse for this kind of incompitence.
@ironchef: I have NEVER seen a satellite or cable install with wall plates. (Unless they were already installed.)
Wow. I recently moved and had Comcast come out to install stuff, the guy actually did an excellent job--I was assuming I'd have to find a way to hide cables under rugs and stuff, he had a special tool that allowed him to rip up the edge of the carpet and run the cable underneath. It was awesome.
Yeah...so...um... how do you plug the cable into the TV now? The first two outlets are completely useless.
The best part of this story is missing. I would have loved to hear how the conversation went between the tenant and Comcast when he packed up his things and left the apartment.
So apparently - Comcast is BAD at Everything!! Worst at Customer Service, Worst at Billing, and now Worst at Installation.
A Comcast side note - Comcast opened a new CS office in the area - and it has a "closed-window" design (no person-to-person contact). Someone noted it had "bullet-proof" glass between the customer and the CS reps. So they "bullet-proof" their CS reps - instead of providing better customer service. Unbelievable.
@renilyn: ya, and thats the whole point of doing it yourself or hiring an outside professional. order the dvr online and ill have the contractor put in as many outlets as i see necessary.
When we had cox "installed" we pretty much just let the guy in, told him where to put down all the necessary equipment, and then told him to get out. Do not trust these people.
Now, let me say that I do feel a little bad about this, but I hope this stuff continues. I've made a few hundred dollars re-doing comcast cabling and adding lines for friends that just don't know how to do it. Sometimes trying to install new cable is a pain in the ass, that's why they put the wires in before drywalling :)
P.S. If you're internet or Comcast digital service seems intermittent, try a new splitter.
Well while we are at it I'll share the one interesting bit of info I learned about comcrap. If you have a big house where the rg-6 cable runs are pretty long and you have a power booster on the video signal you need to then run a separate line for the cable modem. It seems that you cannot power boost the data line, only the video line. So if you get the comcrap triple play and the installer tried to piggyback the data line on a power boosted video line you are going to get terrible download speeds and a lot of disconnections from the cable modem.
Just an FYI..
@JohnDeere: Are you a professional? Because you just said have it all done by a professional and then said you do it yourself. She probably thought it was being done by a professional. Also, this isn't her house, so the investment angle is moot.
Amazes the hell out of me that they can get away with charging so much too. I am paying $60 a month for basic cable in SD no less.
@JohnDeere: I totally agree. Hire a decent electrician or data contractor. Tell them what you want to get done and where the cable box or whatever will be living, and they'll handle the rest. It's not difficult from an electrician's point of view and you can also do it yourself if you are handy.
I just had a comcast tech scratch my hardwood floor AND break my brand-new HDTV and then accuse me of breaking the TV!
Awesome.
I'm staying with Comcast for 2 more weeks and then I'm switching to DirecTV.
you would think that but no
@Diet-Orange-Soda: My DirecTV installer had to run a second cable - so he just drilled a hole in my existing wall plate and ran the cable through it.
Classy.
Wow, that looks like the last time I had a Comcast contractor come to my place. The guy didn't even bring a screwdriver, and asked to borrow one of mine! I am a professional in the cable industry, but I foolishly thought I could save time by having someone else do it. Boy, was I mistaken. Took more work to clean up his mess...
@Diet-Orange-Soda: The guys who did my recent satellite install did put in a wall plate. Actually they were some of the better installers I've had.
It looks worse than it really is. He should have cleaned up before he left but there are few things you guys need to know.
Installing cable in an apartment can be a pain in the ass. This apartment is not properly wired (not his fault, continue reading). It's designed to have splitters behind the wall-plates meaning one line goes in and it splits behind the first wall-plate, after that it goes to another wall-plate and is splits again...It's called cascading splitters and it's something that was done 10+ years ago.
The problem is there is not a lot of space in there and new fittings and splitters most of the time won't fit in. Also it's likely you can't have reliable digital or internet service.
The correct way of doing it is called 'home run'. It means you have one feed line going to your unit, most of the time in the wall inside the closet. From there you have dedicated lines to each of the rooms. No other splits are needed.
If Comcast is like other cable companies they do not run cables inside the wall (wallfish). Also inside wiring is not cable co's responsibility.
He probably had problems getting acceptable signal levels on the outlets you will be using and he bypassed the ones that you will not be using or did not tell him you would. Sometimes you just can't have a modem in that room due to 3 splits on the line...
Did you order the new Comcast Spaghetti package?
wow. that is awful. when anyone with half a lick of common sense could do better than this "professional" something is badly wrong.