I really hope this isn’t deja vu all over again. About this time last year, my cable modem inexplicably stopped working, and what ensued basically took away what little faith I still had left in AT&T. Cable modem accounts in this part of central Pennsylvania were sold off to Adelphia, which was fine when the dust had settled and everyone could admit that that’s what was happening. I’ve had no trouble whatsoever with Adelphia. When I moved across town this August, they didn’t even need to get into my apartment to set up my new account. They’ve always been courteous and helpful, which I definitely couldn’t say for all of the tech support I spoke to last December.
But the thing is, I’m typing this from my office. Because my cable modem inexplicably stopped working yesterday. I thought it might have been the weather that did it — I might have mentioned that it snowed earlier this week — and that it was a system-wide problem, so I decided to call tech support to find out. Their advice was basically “unplug it… okay, now plug it back in… okay, now did that do anything? no? well, we’ll send somebody out then… how’s a week from now sound?”
Which is okay. A little annoying, sure, but okay. I don’t know what else they could have told me. I came to the office because I sent myself an e-mail attachment yesterday before I left, and I can’t receive or open it at home. It’s the draft of this week’s Python Society newsletter, so I sort of need it before tomorrow. Since I’m here, I thought I would try calling Adelphia again. (I also thought I might be able to pay my bill online or over the phone since it’s overdue and I thought that might be the cause of the problem, but that’s another story.) I called their customer service number, and apparently it is a system-wide failure. At least, for my type of cable modem. The recorded voice assured me they are working on the problem.
Which is good. I just hope the problem is fixed sooner rather than later so I can cancel the appointment next Saturday. And I hope it doesn’t escalate into something like last year’s fiasco, when I had to scour message boards to find other disgruntled customers who knew what was going on better than I.