Comcast

Reports coming in from all over that Comcast is in major fail mode. Will they manage to restore service before 9:47 p.m.?

UPDATE: Looks like they managed to avoide frenzied hordes of Sox fans with torches and pitchforks.

The Globe reports Comcast is buying the piece of NECN it didn't already own.

BPD Area E-5 alerts the neighborhood that Comcast is starting an "extensive" door-to-door marketing campaign in West Roxbury (it's running through June!) in which sales representatives will attempt to meet with residents to take back their equipment before they drop dead from their exclusive diet of Kung Pao chicken, which is a Chinese delicacy explain exciting new Comcast offerings.

Police say all Comcast sales reps will have red beards and be out of shape sing in weird monotones about videogames be turtles wear "Comcast Contractor" shirts and jackets and have photo IDs. Also, police emphasize:

This campaign is designed to "meet" with residents. Comcast will not be soliciting residents for money. If you are approached by individuals seeking money beware that this person may not be a Comcast representative and as always call 9-1-1 for assistance.

Don't worry, weary Westie: Cable Guy won't be followed by FIOS Guy because Verizon sucks doesn't offer FIOS anywhere in the largest city in New England, except for a couple of blocks in Dorchester.

Storm knocks out service in Brookline, Roslindale, no doubt points inbetween, but how can you report if your Internet is broken and you don't have, oh, a 'Net-enabled smartphone?

If you have an analog TV and analog Comcast cable service without a converter box, and you turn on WGBH-TV-2 right now, you're going to see something very wrong: video of normal WGBH programming, accompanied by audio of WGBH's continuously-looping Ready for Digital TV special.

The picture says "This TV is DTV Ready" while the sound says, from time to time, "This TV set is not ready for the switch to digital TV in February 2009". Also, the picture is shrunk down and enclosed in a black box.

WGBH says this is a "Comcast engineering problem", not a problem with WGBH's broadcast or with your TV set.

David Scott reports that the Comcast local channel is laying off most of its employees (including, presumably, Sara Edwards) and will end all operations in New England in early January. Some of its sports shows might wind up on Comcast SportsNet New England, he reports.

Matt O'Malley shares the secretest of secrets of how to create a 30-second skip-ahead button for your Comcast DVR remote. Guaranteed to work until the next time Comcast discovers it and sends out secret rays to reprogram the remote - and make Matt disappear.

Not everybody uses their broadband just to download porn. Sometimes on-call social workers need access to Google Maps to find out how to get to emergency locations in the middle of the night. And sometimes, Comcast just doesn't care, John Greiner-Ferris explains.

Mark O'Neill spots one of the Red Line's infamous sperm-donor ads. That SO needs to be placed next to one of Comcast's new "Wanna hook up?" ads (is Comcast really admitting it wants to screw you?).

Write about the fee on your blog.

Barry Nolan out at CN8. OK, granted, probably not somebody you've actually watched since his "Evening Magazine" days, but still. He got canned for objecting to Bill O'Reilly getting some sort of bloviator award from whoever it is who hands out regional Emmies.

Complain about them on Twitter:

... It seems that Comcast has gotten with the program, they even have their own Twitter account, and actively monitor Twitter and other sources for complaints. ...

Fabulously Out There decided to switch from Verizon to Comcast for broadband when the Verizon phone rep offered to send out a technician to diagnose her broken broadband "between 8 a.m. and 7 p.m." She reports her experience with Comcast hasn't been much better.

Chris Albrecht posted this a couple days ago:

At the Digital Living Room conference today, Gerard Kunkel, Comcast's senior VP of user experience, told me the cable company is experimenting with different camera technologies built into devices so it can know who's in your living room.

Via Brian Kane.

Mike Hillwig discusses the suckage known as Comcast.

Lack of due process? Failure to contact the customer about a problem? Termination without explanation? Jpell explains, in great detail, how Comcast terminated his Internet service, twice, for allegedly using too much bandwidth without ever telling him a) just how much that was or b) warning him in advance.

Gripping FCC testimony keeps hired Comcast space-savers glued to their seats. Photo by Free Press; more photos here.

Comcast hired people to get to the Harvard hearing early:

... Comcast spokewoman Jennifer Khoury said the company paid some people to arrive early and hold places in the queue for local Comcast employees who wanted to attend the hearing.

Some of those placeholders, however, did more than wait in line: they filled many of the seats at the meeting, according to eyewitnesses. As a result, scores of Comcast critics and other members of the public were denied entry because the room filled up well before the beginning of the hearing. ...

Brian recounts his first two weeks with the new Comcast Tivo service:

... The experience, while having so much potential for a quality product at a fair price, has been nothing short of disastrous. ...

It's like they always say: Follow the money - right to everybody's favorite cable company.

Betsy Devine reports from her monitor, where, after two hours, she had graduated from second to first in an online queue to chat with a Comcast rep:

... Fortunately, I have lots of work to do at my computer while I wait. ...

Be is quite happy with RCN. She is not at all happy with Comcast, because in the process of hooking her landlord up, Comcast cut her RCN phone and Internet connections:

... THEY SUCK. IF THEY WERE THE LAST TELECOM IN THE US, I'D JURY RIG A SETUP WITH SOUPCANS AND SOME STRING BEFORE I PARTOOK OF THEIR "SERVICE" ...

Ta files his latest Comcast post under "Impotent rage."

Memo to Comcast: You do not want to mess with a guy like Jonathan Kamens, who knows how to do things like measure broadband throughput and who will quickly call you on the fact that the 6 Mbps service you sold him in fact was only delivering 4 Mbps:

... After several rounds of arguing with someone at Comcast about the fact that I was lied to about the speed of the service before I purchased it, I managed to get them to increase my speed to 6 Mbps. Still, they refused to admit that their Web site is misleading (probably intentionally so), and they haven’t fixed it, so I've filed a complaint with the Massachusetts Attorney General's office, not that I actually expect that to do any good. ...

Miss Von Schtoop exults:

The life force sucking cablebox that Con-cast jammed onto the side of my house is GONE! ...