Comcast Tells Customer On Demand Doesn't Work For Many Chicagoans At Night
Mike writes us to say Comcast's On Demand service in Chicago is suffering from dropsies reminiscent of Bears receivers. He says a CSR admitted as much when he called to complain. He writes:
I had an open admission from Comcast tonight on the phone about 28 hours of downtime per month for the entire city of Chicago for their widely advertised "On Demand" service. Here are the details.
Over the past 6 months or more, I've noticed my "On Demand" highly-advertised feature of Comcast Digital Cable has basically gone offline between 2 or 3am and about 7am more than once a week. The past month has been especially bad when trying to rent films on "On Demand" and halfway through, several films cut out completely and a screen came up saying "Unable to Process Request. Call 1-800-594-1234."
As I've done at least half a dozen times, I called Comcast. The number provided says they're only available starting at 5am. So I called 1-800-Comcast and was put on a hold line that said the wait would be 15 minutes. I waited 20 and finally got ahold of someone. After a 38 minute conversation, I was told management had recently had a meeting 1.5 months ago about the late night On Demand issue. This is a minor part of my complaint.
The customer service rep (I have his name and employee number available for legal purposes should it come to it) admitted that from 3am-7am for about a week to a week-and-a-half every single month in the Chicago market, On Demand goes down for maintenance. He offered a weeks worth of credit, but I quickly calculated that I'd have to call back in 7 weeks to get another bundle of credit for the downtime. He said this is fine, but offered no other solution. When I asked him if he personally thought this was unethical to require customers to call and ask for this credit when they advertise a flawless product, he simply told me about their meeting and that as a late night worker, this is all he deals with. I do not blame him for anything, in fact he was polite and informative. I do blame Comcast for charging exorbitant prices for a product that is simply not what they advertise to the general public... especially to people who don't have the patience or ability to call and inquire why their "On Demand" doesn't work at certain hours for an entire week or more.
How many people are they ripping off if there's more than a total day (28 hours by my calculations and by admission of their customer service rep) of On Demand per month unavailable to their customers? Every 7 weeks I have to call them up for a credit of the On Demand not available to me nor anyone in Chicago.
I've had similar problems with Comcast On Demand in Tucson, and when I've called to complain I've often got the response that since it's a free service, I'm not entitled to a bill credit. One time they gave me free HBO for three months, though, so it just depends on which way the wind's blowing.
Anyone else have Comcast On Demand stories, horror or otherwise?
(Photo: honeylamb)
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IIRC, from when Cable and DSL first started competing, and they would list the pros and cons in magazines, since only the backbone of Cable is Fiber Optic, the more users, the more it slows down. There were reports of neighborhoods that had cable which would be forced to use dial up at certain times because the cable became slow and unresponsive.
I used to have this happen to me on Time Warner, especially on Friday and Saturday nights. Anytime they offered a cheap or free rental it was nearly impossible for me to either order it or watch it because it would die in the middle of viewing. I'd end up calling and getting a credit for the movie and a free month of Internet or whatever. The Premium OD stuff was fine tho (Hbo, etc).
Why not use Netflix watch-it-now, Hulu or Youtube? Why continue to give your money for services that don't even work?
Since you're not paying extra for On-Demand, are you really entitled to a credit for it being down?
Same thing happens to me and my parents in two different cities.
They'll come out and test the lines if you call, but there's really nothing they can or will do about it.
They just out grew their main lines. They're too busy rolling out new features to advertise than to install more main boxes out in neighborhoods.
@GitEmSteveDave_IsWaving:
Thats why I had DSL and then cable for only TV. Even then I had only 1 room in the entire house that got On Demand. And we only had it split 3 ways.
I had the cable company come out to try and give them one more chance. They tested my lines and said everything was fine, and the guy made me a new RJ6 cable for my HD tv, since the original complaint was I would only get 1 hour of HD programming a night from them.
I got rid of the HD box, just went cable ready and bought an antenna for OTA HD broadcasts. Now I have fios. Crystal clear picture to every room and on demand in every room and crystal clear HD to the large TV in the den 24/7.
Cable blows. My cable was Charter BTW. Ohh and this same thing is happening to my friend in the same city, but he is stuck with cable since he's in an apartment.
@jsbeagle:
The "main boxes" are called nodes. The nodes aren't the sole break-point for signal strength. A lot of it has to do with the quality/age/condition of the lines that run from the node to the pedestals and from the pedestals to the demarc (on the side of your house) and from the demarc throughout the house. You would be amazed how big a difference a crappy wire can make.
You aren't necessarily paying extra for On-Demand but it is included with your digital cable, which you do pay extra for.
@searonson: why ask that question on this post? Does not add anything to the discussion.
On another note, I have Comcast in Boston and have not experienced this downtime. I will keep an eye out for it.
@wgrune:
To a point; however, what about the people who pay for digital cable and can't use on-demand (those using CableCARDs, etc.)? They don't get a discount, so why should others get a credit?
@searonson:
Why can't you understand that a lot of us don't want to watch television via the internet? Try to stay on topic, okay?
@Esquire99: It's part of the service package that you're already paying for. If it's not functioning, you're not getting the service you're paying for.
I had two separate Comcast phone reps tell me that my OnDemand wasn't working because you can't have a TiVo box between the cable and the cable box (mind you, I'd always had a Tivo box before). Anyway, when the tech finally came out, he discovered a problem with my box not receiving the signal, which had nothing to do with my TiVo box. Also, he was nice enough to hook the TiVo box back up for me after having tested the line.
My point is that the Comcast phone reps often don't know what the heck they're talking about.
Same thing happened to me in Pittsburgh about 12-18 months ago. I was told the same thing - free service = no bill credit.
It's Comcastic!
When you get down to it, it's a SDV (Switch digital video) capacity issue. Basically, you have your converter (which is just a little computer when you get down to it) opening a file on another computer at the cable co's headend. If too many converters attempt to hit the VOD server at one time, it craps out and you get an error message. Worst part is, if you do get a connection, and stop it, the feed is 'turned off' until you resume, which means someone else can snag the connection and you may not be able to resume play of your program for a while.
@Esquire99: Node capacity is a huge sticking point, but I agree, not the only one. If a sub is on a terminating tap, you're screwed. If the line amps are out of balance, you're screwed. If a neighbor on the same tap as you tampered with their own in home wiring, and it's causing reflections and noise spikes on the line, you're screwed. The plant needs to be updated, yes, but there's a lot more to it than just that.
"It's a free service" is something of a spurious claim, since it's a component of the overall service that is not free. If your package is advertised as including "x number of channels and On Demand," then it's not a free service - you're paying for it.
@tbax929 is just plain tbax929: There's plenty of ways to watch Hulu/YouTube/etc on your TV. XBox 360 lets you use Netflix on it. You can also use a PC/Mac with your TV as well. There are many other devices that can do online services as well.
I called Comcast a few months ago here in the Chi burbs and every Tuesday night at 10 pm the internet shuts off for a half hour. I work from home, and do so late at night till early morning, and require the interwebs to function. I asked what part of by business plan could I dictate what hours the service worked, and they said "that doesn't effect most customers".
I explained ATT wouldn't have that feature. I got a 10 dollar credit. The problem stopped a month ago.
Comcastic. Comfantuckingcastic.
Comcast Chicago land is big rip off.
Other comcast areas have sci-fi / Syfy and speed in starter / analog but not hear need digital classic / preferred to get syfy and sports pack to get speed.
they also have fox movie channel in sports pack.
most of Chicago land has less hd then the (city of Chicago) but we pay the same and now they only moving part of the area to mostly all digital and some parts don't yet have a time line for them to do the same likely end of year.
and hear is the kicker digital classic / preferred costs about the same as direct tv HD DVR pack and does not come with HD or DVR on comast that will cost about $7-$10 per HD box and $10 promo to $15-$20 per HD dvr.
also CLTV IS NO LONGER Comcast only. If you want it on dish, direct tv, wow cable, att-uverse request it.
Free service means its free. Therefore, you can stop paying your bill and you should still receive it.
@GitEmSteveDave_IsWaving: Anything over phone lines, whether copper or fiber, is an individual line from the central office to the drop. Satellite is also individual. All of the bandwidth is available to each customer. With cable, it's a shared loop and the more people online, the more people are sharing the same bandwidth. That simply slows things down and there's no workaround that I know of. One thing the cable providers could do is limit the number of people on a loop, but that would be a huge infrastructure cost and I doubt they'll do it.
Daaaa bears.
@H3ion:
I think he's commenting more on the fact that cable companies advertise they are faster than fiber and have all fiber networks even though they dont have fiber to your house like verizon fios does.
The cable companies are taking advantage of peoples ignorance when it comes to networks.
@Esquire99: I'm paying them for cable. On Demand makes up about 95% of the TV I watch. If On Demand is unavailable, my TV is effectively broken. I'm not paying extra for On Demand, but I am paying for cable TV.
I'd love for cable TV to be free. But I pay for it just like everybody else. And if something is part of my cable package (and Comcast does have packages that lack On Demand), I expect it to be part of the package. Or I expect a prorated credit. They can't have it both ways.
@socalrob of the 24 and a half century: Fiber to home versus fiber to node. On the plus side, cable doesn't require any possible rewiring or setting your house on fire.
On a related note, in the brief time I worked for TWC the only area in our division that had issues with bandwith was the military base which we had minimal control over.
@hamburglar: Depends on the provider. You're not always required to have the digital package to get the VOD.
Another example of "The good enough network". Well it's available for the other hours in the month so 28 hours of downtime is good enough.
And my DVR still records multiples of shows even though I tell it only to record new episodes. It has been 6 months since I asked Frank's crew.
Speaking of Frank's crew. Does anyone remember when they would pop on here and comment to try and help the person when they had a Comcast issue? I guess that experiment has failed...
@Lurks with Gophers - Now 30% less binding: So cable can provide phone service, even in a power outage, with no UPS required? Otherwise, even IT needs possible rewiring.
It mostly goes out at night. Mostly.
...when trying to rent films on "On Demand"...
I think the OP may be actually talking about the pay-per-view section of on demand, where your cable bill is charged for viewing semi-recent movies that haven't come to HBO, Showtime, etc. yet.
On my system (Charter) you can either watch one of those on a dedicated channel where the movie basically repeats itself endlessly and you get 24 hour viewing rights, or you can go to a specific on-demand channel and see it there, starting to play when you authorize it. I think that's the type of situation the OP is complaining about, since it's sent specifically to his box and only his box, and is prone to interruptions due to traffic and maintenance. And you are indeed paying extra for that, on top of the free on-demand content.
Sounds like downtime is technically necessary in order for Comcast to deliver this service. If it takes place during the wee hours, one week a month, it sounds like they've determined a process for minimizing customer impact. I'd be surprised if there isn't language in Mike's contract that states that he should expect interruptions due to downtime for routine maintenance. Maybe Mike should find a good book to read for a week every month. Do you hear that? That's the worlds smallest string quartet, playing just for Mike's missing Comcast on-demand.
@tbax929 is just plain tbax929: I had a similar experience once. Not with a TiVo, but with a surge protector.
I had an inline surge protector installed on my cable line, between my cable box and my computer's TV tuner card. Multiple techs and phone CSRs blamed that for my intermittent outages (if the protector is always there, and is 100% of the problem, why is the problem only intermittent?!?) and refused to do anything for me until I removed it.
Finally, my demands that they find a way to fix it without removing the protector got one of the on-site techs annoyed enough to remove the protector himself (without telling me) and proclaim the problem "fixed".
A few days later one of the intermittent cable outages occurred again (with no protector installed) and blew out my computer. Yup, you got it: the intermittent outages were caused by a power surge in the cable line. TV Tuner card: DOA. Computer Power Supply: DOA. CPU: DOA. Lucky for me, it was an older computer, not my big expensive one. But still...
@brain_grenade: And yet, if you refused to pay for that "free service" they'd cut off your cable TV.
@brain_grenade: If VOD is free, then that means Comcast will give you a cable box without an account to just watch VOD content?
I don't think so!
They could just as easily say that you're buying VOD service, and that the cable tv streams are free. So if the signal dies, oh well, it's free anyway!
If I buy a new car with a promise of free oil changes, and they don't provide them, am I entitled to some sort of compensation since it was free to begin with?
@tbax929 is just plain tbax929: They were suggesting an alternative that would avoid the entire issue. Don't get all snotty because you can't figure out how to connect a PC to your TV.
Same issues here - last weekend I went to watch an on demand movie from Time Warner in Queens and it would start but never actually play. This happened whether it was a "free" service like HBO on demand (included with HBO) or a paid movie. When I called, the tech said "things get busy at peak hours..try again later"
Former Chicago Comcast customer here. Moved to Atlanta 6 months ago and have heard the same BS from Comcast Atlanta regarding "On Demand is a 'free service' so why are you bitching that it is not working?" It was never a specific time On Demand was out. But because I was having other more serious problems that required countless hours on the phone with not-nice CSR's to "fix" my problems, I didn't push the issue. No idea if it was ever fixed--Bought a TiVo XL 2 months ago and don't have On Demand anymore.
@GitEmSteveDave_IsGWaving: I think Lurks is talking about compared to FIOS where there have been multiple stories of the installers setting houses on fire. Not compared to the phone line.
Actually, Bears' receivers have come up big this year. In fact, they may be one of the most underrated receiving squads after the first four games.
Check the stats, it's true!
I regularly have this problem in Houston.
I'll stick with Dish Network, I seldom have any issues and the picture quality and customer support is far better.