I hate my cable company with a passion. We've had high definition television for about four years now, and we've suffered with reception problems since the beginning. There's a phenomenon known as tiling, where the picture gets all blocky and often the sound cuts in and out along with it. If you've ever tried to watch satellite TV in snow or heavy rain, then you know what I'm talking about. We've dealt with this problem constantly for the past four years. At first, when we were using the cable company's DVR, they would try sending it a reset signal a few times, then ultimately send someone out to replace it. I lost count of how many times they replaced that box, but that was always what they blamed. It couldn't possibly be their signal. Now, we use our own TiVo brand DVR with decoder cards rented from the cable company, and they blame it on that. That we had the problem long before we got the TiVo is irrelevant; our "unsupported" equipment is obviously to blame. This cable company has no incentive to make their customers happy, since they have the monopoly on cable TV service in the area. Even now that the telephone company has come in with their fiber optic TV service, they still seem to think they're invincible. So many people in our condos have switched already, and we're seriously considering it... I wonder what it will take to make the cable company finally wake up and see that they need to get it together?
Fortunately for those of you who live in a Charter Cable service area, change may be coming. Charter knows how fed up people are getting with cable companies, and they're trying to do something about it. In addition to improving customer service, they're doing some fun things as well. They're on Twitter as @chartercom, and they are currently conducting a sweepstakes for all customers who order new television, high speed internet or telephone service online throughout the month of April. A 22" flat screen HDTV will be given away every day this month, and at the end of the contest they will give away a grand prize package consisting of a 52" LCD flat screen HDTV, a home theater system, and one year of free high definition digital cable service. In similar contests last year, Charter gave away laptop computers, Xbox 360 game systems, and even a 2009 Honda Civic Hybrid!
I sure wish the government would put a stop to all of this regional cable company monopoly business, and make it so any cable company can serve any area they wish. Maybe if they had some competition like Charter, the cable company here would feel more motivated to treat customers right!
![[photo of me]](/glasses144.jpg)
![[album thumbnail]](/photos/flood2010/thumbnails/albumthumb.jpg)
![[album thumbnail]](/photos/oregon2009/thumbnails/albumthumb.jpg)
