That's really interesting. I'm in southern Maryland, just north of DC, and my service went out at EXACTLY the same time on Monday as yours did. I use my service to work remotely for my company, but I am not an official business customer. Alas I have to wait until tomorrow and hope they show up.

Good work and perfect usage of the EECB!

I had a similar situation with my business class a few months ago. After 4 days I had the District Manager show up in person to express my frustration in person. Within 2 hours I was back up and running.

I congratulate the OP for the resolution. However, business class customers shouldn't have to jump through hoops to get back up and running. We pay on average $250.00 a month for their service. It should not be so difficult to get things back up and running.

I'm beginning to realize something, companies that are too big to fail actually fail the end user on a routine basis. Its time to hunt down that little Mom & Pop company and throw these too big to fail companies to the curb even if our gov't is to dense to see that.

I used to work for Comcast and I am not trying to defend them in any way shape or form.

I can at least say though that the year and a half I installed cable and did service calls, the majority of MY service calls were because customers did not understand how their services worked. I would go to an outage call where the tv was tuned to the wrong channel, the tv was on and the cable box was off, the remote needed new batteries, ect. I would go to an internet out trouble call and find a computer so infected with viruses that their internet explorer would only take them to one website yet firefox worked fine, or they had plugged in a wireless router and couldn't get it set up correctly so it was somehow comcast's fault. It is frustrating and wears at you.

I am not placing all the blame on customers, but when you're in a call center and a large portion of your calls are irate customers upset at you for what is essentially their inability to properly diagnose a situation, I can't blame you for getting a little frustrated about it. Which in turn leads to poor customer treatment for legitimate problems.

I don't think it's too much to assume that if you're going to spend $100+ a month on something you'd at least want an idea for how it works.

Also, I'm not blaming the OP on this one, he clearly had a screwed up situation and steps needed to be taken to fix his problem and they weren't. Glad he got his problem fixed and it's frustrating that the supposed "system" wasn't doing what it needed to do.

Something similar happened to me last July, except it had to do with them "deleting" my email address and all the mail associated with it. After three days of dealing with Customer Support, and them not being able to do a thing to help me, I decided an EECB was the only option I had left.

I sent the email to the Chairman and CEO, Brian Roberts and CC'd almost all of the addresses in this article. I did not include my phone number in the email, just the email account I was trying to get fixed. I had a call from one of the executives (can't remember his name) within 10 minutes telling me the issue had been resolved. I logged in and it was working as advertised.

Of course, I sent a letter to the same group thanking the gentleman for promptly resolving an issue that CS and others had told me "couldn't be done".

It sounds like he was running web sites off of his cable connection, if I understand his email correctly... and that is a monumentally bad idea. He should spend the $20 to $30 it would be for a virtual server, and put the websites on that.

I'm not saying what comcast did here was in any way OK, but he needs to cover his own ass a bit better.

@sardonicbastard: His letter starts off with the statement that he is a business class customer. I think his ass is covered just fine.

I highly recommend emailing We_Can_Help@cable.comcast.com before launching an EECB. They were able to resolve an issue I had within 48 hours when we had spent weeks trying to get a resolution through the normal customer service channels.

It's a long story but basically they had switched us to business class when we were not in fact a business. Customer Service admitted that they didn't have a signed contract but kept saying they had to "look into it more" before they could switch us back to residential and give us a refund.

@pb5000: Why are you talking about customers who don't understand their equipment, when you even acknowledge the OP did understand his equipment and had a legitimate complaint.

For someone "not trying to defend Comcast", you certainly sound as if you are. And thank goodness you're "not placing all the blame on customers", just a good majority of it.

@formergr: Stupid italics fail

His biggest problem is that he is still with Comcast when he states that he can get Verizon FIOS. Best move he could ever make.

@larrymac:
Um... running websites you charge people for off a cable connection instead of a climate controlled, monitored,
fault tolerant data center is a "monumentally bad idea".
It most certainly isnt covering his rear.

@pb5000: This comment really serves no purpose. People paying for business class should have their own business class customer service with reps and techs who have proven the ability to handle this service in a timely and excellent fashion.

It sounds like this comment is coming from someone who used to be a low-end residential rep, and yes THOSE people can be quite stupid from time to time, but this guy isn't one of those people, nor is he even residential.

@pb5000: I agree with you, but having stupid customers is not exactly unique to Comcast (and plenty of other companies are able to overcome this burden and provide a passable level of support to most people).

I'm curious-

What was the actual problem and how did they resolve it-- i.e. was it line trouble? Might come in handy to know.

I love it when the cable ix pixelating, downloading is lagging, and I'm told I have to be home for them to send someone to check the outside line, which is obviosly the problem.

@keepher: The problem with that thinking is that the Mom&Pop's still have to deal with the big companies, so it's not so much that you're eliminating the big company just adding a middle man.

For example, my ISP is a small Mom&Pop. They're great to deal with and provide excellent service, but in the end they still buy their bandwidth from Bell Canada as Bell owns all of the physical copper phone lines in the city. So instead of me buying residential DSL service from Bell, I'm buying it from the Mom&Pop who are buying wholesale DSL service from Bell. What makes the situation even worse is that Bell only allows their wholesellers to offer service that's substantially equivalent to theirs. As such, when Bell implimented BitTorrent filters, my Mom&Pop got them as well (they fought against Bell but were unsuccessful). So at the end of the day, Bell is still getting my money and telling me what kind of service I'm allowed to have, but I now deal with a third party for billing and tech support.

@larrymac: No his rear was not covered. I'd never consider hosting business web sites on a cable connection. A nice climate controlled server facility with multiple companies providing data connections and power backup would be much better.

@JGKojak: "I call tech support. Immediately the tech tells me to check the Amperage on the transformer thats plugged into the modem, along with the modem itself. They did not match up, so he said my modem is fried, and will have a tech bring me another one."

Sounds like the modem was fried. :-)

@pb5000:

I agree with pb500. If you have never worked at a help desk center, then you have no idea what goes on.

At least 50% of my IT desk was for non-IT related questions.
"What's the website for XXX?"

"What time does XXX close?"

I imagine Comcast would get "What does does XXX show come on?

Another 25% are stupid questions.

"I can't see anything on my screen, it's pitch black." TURN THE DAMN THING ON.

"My internet doesn't work."
Plug in the cable.
"What cable?" + "Don't I automatically have wireless like my cell phone?" (I FREAKING HATED THIS MORON)

And if you don't get my rant, they waste our time and prevent us from getting real work done. Granted, I was intelligent enough to know when real problems occurred and what needed to be escalated immediately.

@pb5000:

If comcast offered even some level of information about their services maybe that would be so. Everyday users I'm sure do not go research how routers, cable modems, internet connections operate on a level that allows them to diagnose problems effectively.

People may not read them, but a possible solution to erroneous calls would be better customer service and education in the first place.

@breese524: And much more expensive.

@sardonicbastard: Where does he say the websites are hosted through the cable modem? They could be in data centers. He'd still need Internet access to manage them.

Please. This is a neat new thing with Comcast in Virginia. I have had several people that I support have this issue.

My mother has vonage through he cable connection. All summer they have been dropping connection. The techs have been rude, worthless and generally just plain unable to think productively.

I had replaced her modem as the first call resulted in me being told her 9 year old modem was 'sunsetted' and done. I drove the hour to the facility and got a new one. I asked if it was provisioned as I didnt want to sit on the phone dealing with it. She said when it is scanned in its activated. Nope it was not ready at the house. That modem was also bad and would not work.

Got another modem. Same activation merry-go-round. Again modem doesnt work. I explain to the tech that her signal is degrading and something is really wrong outside. He insists that I have to be there for the tech to check things out. We both get irritated but he hangs up before anything constructive can be done.

Another modem is retrieved. Now on-demand doesnt work and most channels have vanished. We also replaced her cable box as they swore that was the issue. Having had enough of the tech claiming it was in the house I went to the connection at the street and asked how the packets were now. He said they were dropping and he couldnt connect to the modem. I told him I was at the box on the street and I could see the wire going up the pole swinging in the breeze where they had not tied it down. That keys into the outages being so sporadic.

We get nowhere on getting the lines fixed. I stapled the lines down and moved her port on the box on the pole. She has had full service for several weeks now. I cannot get her a credit for the outages even though they replaced 3 modems and a cable box as they have no record of her having a problem.

We are seriously ready for Fios.

I have problems with Comcast all the time. I get an e-mail from the Public Relations Society of America because I work in PR. And the PRSA includes job postings, one is for Manager- Public Relations, Comcast. I think they need more than just a manager.

@mizike: Ahh, but your tech support and interactions with the Mom & Pop are probably far superior to what you'd get with the behemoth company.

@aznjoker: Yeah this is spot on. And for those who think that business class customers actually know what's going on, there's nothing that strikes as much fear into the heart of a help desk tech as the words "I am a MCSE."

My favorite story from my help desk days:

I was working for a fairly large and wealthy school district in Arizona. Part of the job was to provide personalized service to the district superintendents. The guy in charge of running of the district's high schools (for which he was paid a boatload of money) called me up one day to fix his laptop.

Solution? It was turned off. I repressed a laugh, found a politic way of explaining the problem somehow, showed him the power button and thought it was taken care of.

Less than a week later, I was in his office again. Same problem. Same solution. The guy was a moron.

And he was in charge of all of the high school principals. If you want to understand the problems with education here, start at the top.

@aznjoker: No. You are wrong. I've done IT for the last 3 years. And yes, those people are the majority of your calls. But it's very very VERY easy to recognize the people that actually know what they're talking about and genuinely have issues. And I'm so thrilled to get those calls that I try to get them resolved as fast as possible.

@aznjoker: Whoops, sorry, didn't catch your last bit. My "you are wrong" should be directed at pb5000. :)

@Corydon: @aznjoker: @pb5000: Yep yep. I've done help desk in various capacities for close to five years and I've had some doozies, including a guy who told me "I missed the damn boat" because I was trying to refer him to the Registration office for a question about classes. My favorite though...

I was training a new guy (we work in a two-three person support environment with probably 10+ new people every year, about half staff turnover) and told him he should take the next question solo to see how he did. Unluckily, this lady with a MacBook comes up. Nothing wrong with macs, but she doesn't understand them, tries to run them like a windows machine, and should have gotten a windows laptop (all she does is Office tasks). So he sits down with her and tries to figure out why her DVD won't play.

He tries it in whatever her default player is - only gets sound. Downloads another player, sound only. Tries a couple of codecs, nope. Googles it, no apparent solution, a couple solutions involving player settings are no good here. He tries a third player, and gets suspicious when it shows the playlist (I guess the other two players didn't) as being 3-4 minutes per item in most cases. "Oh, that's normal, this DVD is like that!" she tells him. He decides to pop it out to check for scratches.

...it's a CD.

Turns out the lady just likes the visualization feature in Windows media player and thought that was the video on her "DVD"

@formergr: Because it explains the angry, rote technical support he did get - call center employees can't assume a customer knows what they're doing because so often, they don't.

@wagenejm: You'd be amazed at how many higher ups are just as ignorant of their technology. I used to have to sit down with the director of our college and do stuff. I had to teach our multi media/computer "expert" faculty how to use a slideshow in Iphoto and how to make power point presentations.

They *should* have their own tech support line, I agree, but from the sound of it, they don't. Which means his comment serves a purpose - to explain exactly why that service was what it was.

" I have appointments to make, so I leave instructions for the tech to just leave the equipment, and Ill hook it up when I return in the evening. ......

I return from the field"

Sorry, the cause to the continuation of the problem is the fault of the OP.

Had the OP stayed at his business and allowed the visiting tech to perform the task the task would have been performed (and corrected) by the Tech OR the tech would have acquired reinforcements to correct the problem through the normal chain of command.

Since the OP took it upon himself to avoid the tech and in turn install the parts by himself the OP is at fault for all subsequent problems that may occur.

The fact that the tech was late is a separate issue. Being lied too about the service time is an issue that can be resolved ($$$) in my favor at a later date. All the subsequent problems are strickly the OP fault.

EECB is a great tool. I wonder how it would work if you start CC'ing the competitors to scare companies into fixing it sooner. In this case, he threatened to switch to Verizon. What if he CC'd verizon sales and told comcast that if Verizon gets a connection up and running before comcast fixes this one then he will permanently cancel the account and switch to the competitor. That will make comcast hustle and can give incentive to verizon to get out there fast and get it up and running. Verizon can then brag about it and use it in commercials and sales calls. it's a win-win situation for the customer either way and the fastest response gets the customer.

@keepher: But when the big company causes a problem for the Mom & Pop, you also get the problem. That's what I see happening here - the OP runs a small business, the sort you might want to patronize if you want better service than the big companies. But when Comcast has a problem, he has a problem, and his clients have a problem - and Comcast is no more responsive to this small business than they would be to an individual customer.

Or, what mizike said.

I understand the guys frustration, and while comcast is very much in the wrong here...so is he.

Unless he is using a line with a Service Level Agreement that exceeds what he has promised his customers, he is on the line for that downtime. If he does have an SLA which indicates this is unacceptable, he should begin talking to them about compensating him for the down time.

In any case, he should still have a redundant connection for his servers if he is acting as a host, or he shouldnt be hosting. Its that simple.