Comcast shut me down again

Thursday, July 24, 2008 by Dave Winer.

Oy. This is probably the end of the line for me and Comcast. About an hour before today's Obama speech, I was upstairs, with Slingplayer on the 2nd monitor, Audio HIjack Pro ready to record, when the net went down. I figured it was another outage, we had one here in Berkeley last week.  

So I posted a twit to comcastcares, saying we had another outage. The response said it wasn't an outage.  

Net-net, it's some kind of "security" thing, so says Frank Ellison, the comcastcares guy. I told him if this isn't a legitimate security issue, then please close my account, both Internet and TV (for which I now pay $183 per month). I have redundant service for both, with an AT&T DSL line and a DirecTV dish, I'm hardly watching any TV at all these days, other than MSNBC and a little CNN, and while their Internet sure is fast, if they keep taking it down and insisting that I grovel and listen to lectures to get it turned back on (or worse, who knows what they have planned for me this time) -- no thanks. I don't think groveling and being a valued customer go together. 

Ellison also volunteered that he liked me. My response was you're a company rep, you don't get to like or not like me.  

It's with a little bit of anger and frustration that I realize that Comcast paid $175 million to get Joseph Smarr to work on their network, and their answer to me is: 1. Pay $183 per month. 2. I should care whether they like me or not. 3. They'll shut me down when they want me to call. 4. They don't care if it's right before Obama's speech in Berlin or not. 5. Fcuk off Dave. (I threw #5 in there for attitude, they didn't literally tell me to fuck off, it's more in the body language.) 

Oh yeah, they paid $75 million for a bunch of newsletters today. I'll end this piece the way I began it. Oy. 

PS: Here's the writeup of the issue with Comcast in April. 

Update: Their issue isn't with the security on my net, it has to do with how much bandwidth I use. Can't work with them when their method of getting me on the phone is to shut off my service, without any warning. I told them to close the account. I'm no longer a Comcast customer. I'm sure they'll send me another bill, adding insult to injury.