Pissed at RCN

[warlord_mit]

I've been an RCN customer for over a decade.  I've been quite happy with them all this time.  Their phone service has been solid.  Their Cablemodem service has been fast.  And their TV service has been very friendly and open.  Their basic cable has been accessible without a cable box, and once I got a digital tuner I was able to tune in to 92

Comments

[geekpixie]

Some time I will give you the full blown rant of how you would have had excellent customer service but RCN closed the call center of over 300 people that I trained most of in Western MA and centralized all call center operations in freakin' Wilkes Barre PA. They cost both me (I was leaving anyway) and my Dad a job.

And whenever I help anyone with their issues with them, I still end up walking the person on the phone through the backassward system they put in 3+ years ago now.

that was the little rant, just imagine the big one ;)

That said, good luck!

[ken_r]

Write a letter? Unless you can get past the first-level droids, I wouldn't expect them to be too well informed or too helpful with anything but your basic service disruptions and billing problems. In a letter you can lay things out much more specifically, with references to FCC rules that are hard to simply ignore in favor of some droid's misunderstanding

[avacon]

It's not clear that any of the cable or DTV providers are
any better than the others. I've mostly gone the route
of using TiVos as DVRs as they seem to find fairly reasonable
compromises and also handle some core functions without
me needing to futz too much. (Although I still need to call
RCN and figure out why the new HD channels they added don't work.)
I also wish RCN would get SciFi in HD one of these days...

[ken_r]

If they do, pray that they don't do excessive compression of it like Comcast does. The USA and SciFi HD channels sometimes look worse than the analog ones, because the extra compression results in occasionally jerky motion. (I've seen postings from people who've looked into it in more detail, and Comcast's versions of programs on some HD channels was poorer quality, and smaller in terms of DVR storage, than the same programs on the same HD channels on another provider. Don't have a pointer handy though.)

[flyinhome]

Anytime you're dealing with a cable TV company, it helps to realize that fundamentally, they don't view you as a customer. You are the product, and furthermore, you are a commodity. They are primarily in the business of selling your eyeballs to advertisers. The fact that they're taking your money in exchange for the privilege of doing so is only incidental. And since (a) they generally have no competition in a market area and (b) they assume that everyone watches TV, they believe they OWN your eyeballs.

"Customer service" in that context takes on a whole new meaning.

[warlord_mit]

Except in my case there IS competition (RCN and Comcast both provide cable service). Also, Verizon is beginning to hone in on their territory, too, with their Fios service. And in my case they are making it HARDER for me to watch. One would think based on your assumption they would want to make it easier.

[flyinhome]

Even if there's competition for cable TV in your area, I suspect cable companies in general have adopted a mentality based on the usual historic case - much as telcos tend to have a "walled garden" mentality dating from the days when Ma Bell controlled the entire network.

[anonymous]

hey dope, the fcc is mandating this. all cable companies have to do it. "With the Federal Communication Commission’s mandate that all broadcast channels be transmitted digitally by Feb. 17, 2009, digital is the future direction of the industry,”

[warlord_mit]

And you, like RCN, gets the mandate wrong. The mandate is specifically only for over the air broadcasts. So yes, WCVB, WBZ, WHDH, etc all have to stop broadcasting in NTSC by Feb 17, 2009. But this has NOTHING to do with the cable companies. Cable companies are expressly allowed to continue with analog broadcasts on their cable plant. Moreover, the cable companies are expressly REQUIRED to provide the local channels.

So who's the dope?