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Yes it’s true, the porting issue with Comcast may actually be over. For a refresher you can look here, or here. The lady given our case from the executive office of Comcast has been pretty punctual at calling us every couple of days. Unfortunately it’s to tell us they are still working on it. It must of been really messed up because it took Comcast over two months to straighten this out. Last week some time we received the call we’ve been waiting for, that they have fixed the issue and that Comcast has no record anywhere of having control of our phone number. Well I hope it’s true–Now that I think of it, I never did ask if my in-laws, Comcast phone users, where able to call me yet.
The saga continues! Calling Comcast support still hasn’t progressed anywhere with my wife or I so I had a new idea, contact the FCC. Now I understand the need for the FCC, but I haven’t been a big fan since the day they raided a friends house and removed thousands of dollars in high-energy equipment for disturbing local radio communication. And yes, he ignored their prior warnings. 🙂
I went to the FCC website and sent a complaint about Comcast for basic harassment, since they kept giving our phone number to their new clients and causing us grief.
Guess what, it actually worked! On Thursday(11/1) we received a phone call from the executive office of Comcast indicating to us that they have received an letter from the FCC about our issue and will get it fixed straight away. We received an update that night that they where unable to complete the update but will continue to try. No phone call received on Friday, so believe me I will be following up on Monday morning. Yes, the representative from Comcast gave me their contact information. Hopefully they can finally get our phone number fully ported out of their systems.
By the way, Digital broadcast is a reality and by February 17, 2009 analog T.V.’s will be useless unless they are setup to receive a digital broadcast signal. Bastards. http://dtv.com
I can’t believe it, yet again Comcast has tried to assign our phone number to a new client. This has been going on for over three years now. A while back I used Comcast phone service along with their data and cable. The phone service was no better or cheaper then Ameritech, so bailed (which they didn’t care at all when I left, nothing like customer retention). I switched off of Comcast to go to Vonage and ported my number over to Vonage. I filled out the needed paperwork and faxed it in, and Vonage took care of re-addressing my phone number to their network, or however that is done in telephony land. It took almost a month for Comcast to release the number, I spent countless of hours on the phone with both carriers trying to figure out what is going on. Eventually, it was straightened out and I was well on my way to Vonage bliss.
At work some time later, I called home to say hi to my wife, I couldn’t get through! Forgot what the message was or whatever it was, but I could call home. So I get back on the phone with Vonage and Comcast to figure out what is going on. This goes back and forth, off and on for the next couple of months, until finally some smart person at Vonage figured it all out and called the right people at Comcast.  It turns out that Comcast never marked my phone number as ported, or what ever they do there. I was told all is OK again. Things where working.
Couple months later my in-laws, who still use Comcast phone, could get through to us, they where getting a quick busy or somthing like that. It turns out that Comcast has assigned our phone number to a new client of theirs. It only effects Comcast customers now, within their network, as in reality they have no rights over the number and the rest of the world knows the number is routed to Vonage. Again they fix it and again it is screwed up, this has been going on and on, and on for years now.
Not sure if this will help at all, but I contacted the FCC and reported Comcast keeps re-assigning our phone number. We will see where it goes from here.
Why do people have to lie, I just don’t understand it? There are three characteristics of people I just can’t tolerate, liars, cheats and thieves. In way they are one in the same, just a little different in execution. Anyway, I just don’t get it.
As the song by Huey Lewis and the News rings through my head, with strange new lyrics saying, “I want a new fuel, one that does what it should…”
This morning on WBBM radio they said a national survey indicated that Chicago has the highest gasoline prices right now at $3.59 a gallon! It’s really just insane, because you know all the oil companies are showing HUGE revenues (profits too). What I find even more surprising is that every one seems to omit that 9/10 of a cent on every gallon of gasoline, so it’s really $3.60 a gallon. Many years ago, companies thought they would save their customers a little money by taking off 1/10 a cent on every gallon a gas, well it’s still nothing but a joke, an misrepresents the cost of the fuel. It’s corporate conditioning.
I makes me think of the Illinois Toll Way. They have these electronic devices you put in your car, called iPass, so you don’t have to fumble with change at toll booths. We have one of the first models which has an LCD screen to show the charged amount and balance on the account. A few years ago, the Tollway Authority made many changes to their Tollway system, making express lanes for users of this Ipass device. At this same time, the display on my unit started only show zeros. Their explanation, “There is a system bug, and we don’t know how to fix it.”
More like they don’t want to fix it. See, shortly after these upgrades to the roadways and iPass systems they put down an ultimatum, “Use an iPass device or pay double.”
Yes double! A driver who goes from Wisconsin to Indiana and uses the Illinois Tollway can expect to pay $4, where I with my iPass will pay $2 (I may have the amounts too low as I don’t remember all of the toll booths between Indiana and Wisconsin).
Again, this is conditioning, I don’t see what I am paying, everything is charged to an account, which I can see most people not paying attention to as it’s automatically charged to your credit card, when the account balance reaches a defined level. Also, there is very limited postings of the actual cost of the Tolls. It used to be displayed everywhere, now it’s hardly displayed anywhere. Simple psychology, out of site-out of mind. With the next raise in tollway fees, it will not be as noticeable to its end users as they aren’t consistently reminded now what they are paying at each tollbooth now.
I am cleaning up dishes after getting my kids to bed when the phone rings–of course I allow my auto-phone assistant pick it up. Over the machines speaker I hear the voice of one of my oldest friend’s wife. Immediately I am thinking, this can’t be good. She never calls, I really only hear from her husband, specially since they moved down to Florida. As I listen to the message, my initial reaction comes true; My friend Mike Laux passed away Sunday night from an over-dose. So it goes.
Of course I called her back, after a few minutes to let the news sink in. It’s not that it’s unbelievable that it happened, it’s just nothing you ever actually want to hear. The worst part of the problem is that he was originally found by his eldest daughter, who ran to her mother saying that, “Dad is lying on the kitchen floor with blood running out of his mouth.”
Goodbye Mike, you will be missed.
I use a mobile device which runs Windows Mobile 5, a hand-held based OS which reminds me a lot of windows 95. Anyway, the default home page on the device has a link to the Windows Mobil home page, strangely enough, not very compatible at all with the browser which comes with Windows Mobile 5 (some hacked up version of IE 4 it seams). When I went to the site just now to verify the url, I noticed that there is a large flash area on the page. Mobile IE doesn’t support flash, nor does the site redirect you based on your browser type, so it is almost impossible to navigate around the page
I also receive an email once a month from the Microsoft Windows Mobile group, this email is sent in HTML which isn’t viewable by the mobile Outlook installed on the phone! Mostly what I see is many links to spacer.gif images.
I find this very strange that the mobile group, who are trying to promote their mobile services and offerings don’t support the applications the are promoting. One of the major reasons I have to device is so I may catch up on reading while commuting back and forth to work. Reading which can’t include Microsoft Windows Mobile information.
It’s the little things like this which drive customers away from a company. You either supply exemplary customer service, or you die in business. You think it doesn’t matter with a company like Microsoft? We will just wait and see. The Trio is looking very promising as my next hand-held.
They are at it again! Sony is increasing subscription cost on their online games. Planetside is going up $2 a month, this is an increase from $13 to $15. It sure makes the game a lot less attractive. They haven’t done a lot of updates to it over the last few years and are now coming our with a large CE (combat engineering) update. The reason for the update is the usual, due to bandwidth costs and continual updates we need more money. The thing is, the number of subscribers is way, way down, and increasing costs isn’t going to improve that. The days of huge battles lasting hours are gone, there just isn’t the same number of players anymore. Recently the “old-timers” are playing new characters under the reserves program. This is basically free play up to battle rank 6–Enough BR to allow specialization in one thing–still fun, if people where on. For you EQ2 (Ever Quest 2) fans, and station pass holders, those prices are going up too, a station pass will be $30 (up from $25)! That is asking a lot from your subscribers. I guess I get to sit back and watch as Sony screws the pooch once again with it’s online gaming division.
Stuff From an IT Slug 