Friday, July 04, 2008

I gave up!

Ok I hate to admit it but Comcast finally won the QAM channel war, at least in this house...

My wife had gotten to the point where she refused to touch the TV saying "You figure out where the blasted channels are now"...

So after three (two of which were pleasant) conversations with Comcast representatives we picked up a HD Cable Box... I don't know about anyone else out there but I wasn't expecting a box bigger then my DVD players, oyyyyyyyy...

Get it hooked up and find out we are getting HBO, Showtime, Cinemax and other Pay channels, BUT not getting ESPN HD or others I had been told we would, so another call to Comcast, this time to technical support and another very helpful person said the box just needs a kick and 5 minutes later sure enough the Pay channels were gone and all the HD channels were there.

The one not so pleasant conversation with a Comcast representative went something like this...

Me: I would like to make arrangements to pick up a HD Cable box.
Rep: That will be $29.95 upgrade charge and $59.95 wiring charge...
Me: Whoa what do you mean I have cable I just want to add a HD box
Rep: You have Full Basic Service and have to be upgraded to digital
Me: I already get digital channels.
Rep: You have to be upgraded...
Me: Forget it Good-bye...

I thought about it the next day and figured OK this really PO's me so I am gonna call and raise Hell. I call again and get a very nice Lady who says I am not sure what information you were getting but all you need to do is get the Box, $6.95 a month additional on your bill, no upgrade or service fee is required. So we went ahead and got the box.

Now I still will have to fight the Comcast QAM channel shuffle when I want to record a program on DVD, but I am the only one that messes with that and now my wife can find a channel to watch on the TV herself instead of glaring at me and saying what channel is NBC tonight...

For those that come along after finding this in a search for QAM channels in Jacksonville, I recommend checking the latest posts in this link:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=321055

Chalk one up for Comcast :( ...

-Bob