Stormville or two weeks without phones or internet.

[icarus]

I'm sure you all heard (world-wide) about the short little storm here that knocked out the entire DC area power grid (okay, okay, large portions of it) for, well ... where I live, 48 hours. Enough to cancel most of the 4th of July celebrations hereabouts.

But I bet you didn't know about the quirk of Verizon's super-ultra-high-speed FIOS where, if the power's out for more than 24 hours, it doesn't come back on.

In my case, I'm going to be without internet -- or phones! Let's not forget the phones! -- until July 11th.

That's the result of a conversation with Verizon that went something like this:

My aunt: My power's back on but my internet's still out. It blinked on for a moment and then it was gone.
Verizon: Give us your account number and we can help you.
My aunt: You switched me to online billing only without my permission, so I don't have my account number.
Verizon: That's no problem. Just look it up online.
My aunt: *steam coming out of her ears*

...except make the conversation much longer, more confusing, involve a couple of Verizon reps, and have all of them repeat the look-it-up-online comment. She may, just possibly, have threatened to cancel our service.

Four days later they still hadn't done anything about our service, so she called them again. This time they tried to walk her through a fix. When two wires came out of the battery as she worked, they decided to schedule a service call. That's when they discovered her threat to cancel the service in their records. Now they're refusing to come out to solve the problem.

Comcast will be here on the 11th.

Comments

[everbright]

Oy, that's just ridiculous. At least there's more than one internet provider out by where you are. :(

[icarus]

Oh wow. I didn't even think about areas where there's only one option (and that dial-up).

I fear, from conversations with friends, that Comcast is no better.

[icarus]

The internet is back!

And so far, Comcast is not horrible.

So far.

[sorrel]

I will say I had a similar-ish experience with Verizon several years ago, when I moved into my first place. They had three months and failed to get either phone or internet established, so I cancelled and Comcast was there in like two days to set up triple play. And then they failed to cancel my account properly, and then sent bill collectors after me for the money that THEY owed ME, and it took over two years and three separate consults with an SEC agent to get it sorted and off my credit history. So what I'm saying is, in my view, Verizon was pure evil and Comcast has been great, but I know people with opposite stories.

My two cents worth.

[icarus]

I've heard terrible things about both. So far, Comcast makes mistakes, but they're not telling us to get lost. So that's an improvement.

[wanted_a_pony]

OMG. Would you like to borrow some of my blood pressure meds? >¦-þ

Well, around here (NE Florida) Comcast is the do-nothing, fuck-you company & AT&T is the fuck-you, don't-like-it,-whistle-Dixie company. Basically, which one is less-bad depends on your exact location: whose lines are older there, residences of influential community members nearby, distance to the nearest major junction or sub-station, etc.

(Now see, if we would just let Capitalism work its magic & stop Strangling Innovation with Capital-Stealing Taxes & Communistic Regulation, the Free Enterprise System & Free Market Economy would fix situations like this! Like when AT&T was Big Bell... or, er, when Comcast was the only cable provider here.... Well, anyway, it would be BETTER, it just would! /rant ;-)

[icarus]

I'll pass them along to my aunt. She's the one who had to deal with Verizon. I'm just VERY happy to have the internet back after a week and a half without.

Ma Bell was pretty good.