Could it be? Is it actually possible to not spend hours upon hours waiting for the cable guy to show up and despairing when he takes four hours or even worse, never shows up? Time Warner Cable says it’s working on a new system wherein a technician would arrive within a one-hour window instead of that, “sometime between here and there” four-hour window system that it currently employs.

The company says it’s working on the new plan in Wisconsin, reports the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, because of all those complaints from customers everywhere that they’re sick and tired of waiting at home for a large chunk of the day just to get their cable fixed.

Time Warner says it’s been testing the system for the last six months, wherein 98% of the time a technician will not only show up within a 60-minute time period, but the company will give a customer a guess as to how long the work will take.

You know what that means? No more planning your life around weird chunks of time in the middle of your day, where you might even have to take a day off or just make your boss grumpy by missing work between 11-3 to wait for someone who sometimes never even shows up.

According to a report from TOA Technologies, a company that does time management studies, we expend a lot of energy to plan for home services. More than 50% of adults have used a sick day or vacation day to make sure they’re home for such technicians, while 25% say they even lost out on money because they had to be home for an appointment or delivery.Time Warner seems as pleased as its customers are sure to be with the plan, which is in use right now in Milwaukee, Kansas City, Cleveland and Dallas.

“Now you could get cable installed over your lunch hour,” said a company spokeswoman, adding that no new jobs were created to implement the system during the hush-hush testing period. “We didn’t want to do any promotions around this until we knew we had it nailed down and were delivering what we were promising.”

And if the technician doesn’t make that one-hour window? Time Warner will hand out a $20 credit on the customer’s bill.
Any readers out there who’ve experienced the new system, let us know how and if it worked by dropping us a line at tips@consumerist.com.Time Warner tests speedier cable service [Milwaukee Journal Sentinel]

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