Comcast's digital switchover leaves much to be desired

I belong to a group called Consumers Of Mediocre Cable and Substandard Technology, better known as Comcast. I feel that the general public should be aware of what is going on, and I am sure there are more than a few people that are in the position that I am. I have been a member for over 20 years and only until the past few years I have been satisfied. However, the most recent events have me scratching my head wondering how Comcast can become a monopoly and ignorant in their ways. I say this because of the following events that have occurred.

It started back about 4 years ago. My wife and I are not big TV watchers and only get basic cable and at that time I believe we were getting about 72 channels, which is fine. Comcast was going through channel reconfiguration and decided that some of those channels were no longer going to be part basic cable. One in particular was the TV Guide Channel. I called and was told I would need to change my cable package if I wanted that channel. So needless to say, we have lived without the channel learned to surf really well since we did not know what was on TV that particular day for the past 4 years.

Now Comcast has decided to go digital and has provided these DTA's that we need to hookup. My experience has not been so good. I have called them several times and replaced the box 3 times. Come to find out they issued us a remote control that was not compatible with the DTA. Once we got this straightened out we were up and running.

This at least is what we thought, we have a HDTV and can no longer get our HD channels, so I called Comcast and was told that the only way you are going to get these channels is to buy the option that gives you a DVR or remove the DTA every time I want to watch something in HD. I went ballistic but to no avail it was like talking to a brick wall. As far as I am concerned both options are unacceptable. I did get two versions of the story of why they are going digital. when calling on the phone they are saying it is the government that is mandating that they go digital, but when you go down in person the reason that was given is that it allows for a wider bandwidth for pumping info through the system i.e. phone, Internet and cable (AKA their bundles).

Ok, so now It does get worse to the point that I feel that Comcast is becoming a monopoly like AT&T was. We went to go tape something and found out it does not work, yes it does not work. I called them and they said that I must be doing something wrong and we troubleshot this several times to no avail. Comcast's bottom line is purchase a DVR. Come to find out the only way you can tape something is having the TV set to channel 3 and put the DTA channel to what you want to tape. Does this sound hokey? Well it should, why do I want to tape something that I am currently watching? Comcast has said this is the only way that it will work. So to add more insult to the problem we also find that you cannot tape multiple channels, meaning if there is something on at 8 p.m. on ABC and something on at 9 p.m. on CBS the DTA will not change from ABC to CBS you manually have to do this, so now I guess we cannot go on vacation or go out for an evening because we cannot tape shows and Comcast could care less. Thank God, I am not a couch potato. Sometimes I think we would be better off without TV. The news is always doom, gloom and gossip.

We just want to be able to watch what shows we want when we want to. NOT WITH EXTRA COMPONENTS OR FEATURES THAT WE HAVE TO PAY FOR. As a project manager by trade, this launch was not well planned through. Comcast did follow through on good project management or business practices by not investigating what issues may arise during the launch and they defiantly do not have a contingency plan in place for what we have been experienced.

Our society has become so passive and we let people walk all over us and just except the issue. I do not feel that Comcast has the right to just say," Well that is the way it is and if you want your normal functionality that you had for the past 20 years, pay up, or sorry Charlie there is nothing we can do for you." This is unacceptable and I am reporting them to the Better Business Bureau and whoever else I can think of.

Our request is simple: Give me the same service that we had prior to the digital turnover. We should not have to sacrifice what we had for the same amount of money with less features. And under no circumstances should we have to pay for something just because they did not do their homework just so they get more of a market share or a monopoly.

Guy Cushman
Ann Arbor