Triple Play
I need to talk to the comcast people. I like triple play when it works. When it’s going well (afternoons and evenings, mostly) it is rockin’ fast and mostly wrinkle-free. Some special features like showing caller ID on the TV screen is cool when we’re all cuddled up and watching TV and not in the mood for telemarketing. The product is a pretty superior idea, but I’m worried that it’s not well-developed yet.
Triple-play really sucks in the morning. All three of my services (phone, internet, cable) are spotty and unreliable. It drops voice calls, pixelates cable video, and disconnects me from the internet. I don’t know if that’s part of some service window, or what. You would think that the hours from 8am to 10:30am would be times of unused bandwidth as most people are at their day jobs or on the streets. Kids are in school, so there is minimal cartoon network or disney channel. I’m lucky enough to be home most days, and work via VPN. I would think that the morning would be great, and service would degrade as the kiddies return home from school and the parents get back from work. The opposite seems to be true.
Maybe a busy system is a happy system?
I have to talk to comcast and see what’s up, but the problem is certainly interesting. Where do the lag, delay, and dropping come from?
You should complain on Twitter. Our service has been having intermittent issues since we switched to the Triple Play in June. I complained on twitter at the end of august and already have people from Comcast HQ and their executive office making sure my issue is resolved properly.
Comment by Michael Schultheiss — 2009-September-2 @ 07:23
Dropped a couple of tweets into the ether this morning. I hope that will help. I really want to like triple-play. I think it makes a lot of sense.
I guess the sales department outran the logistics and infrastructure. That always seems to happen in tech companies.
I wish they’d let us know that we’re experimental early adopters and give us breaks on price and access to support while it shakes out. That would turn things around from “comcast sucks” to “I’m an adventurer.”
Maybe that’s a good lesson for everybody who takes on proper technical debt by releasing something early for feedback and early revenue.
Comment by Tim — 2009-September-3 @ 02:26
Today two trucks of techs showed up to check out our problems. Tks to Michael for the advice. They checked out all of our connections and replaced some connectors.
Apparently our troubles are all over the area. Our neighbors and even their dispatcher have the same problems. Apparently it has to do with broadcast interference from other commo carriers in the area? I didn’t get to hear the explanation, but apparently it’s bigger than our household or even our immediate housing addition.
Bummer. Further news when we have some.
Pair programming today was rough and spotty, but successful. We got a problem fixed and a bunch of tests written.
Comment by Tim — 2009-September-5 @ 02:20