Hi Honey I'm Home...Warning! Huge Angry Rant About Cox Cable

[Darth Bootay]

Okay, after three days of lack-o-internet, I'm back.

My cable company is the big evil. They reprovisioned my building, then changed their crappy DHCP servers to some totally obscure protocol that mistook my firewall router for a second cable bridge. And didn't document either change. And wouldn't admit to either change without three days of major headache.

When we called the first day, they fed us the usual "cycle the power on your 'cablemodem'" garbage. Then told us we'd have to wait till Friday at one to have a technician come look at our stuff. They didn't even bother to check on any changes that may have been made, even after we asked them to. (Since Cox Communications is INFAMOUS for making unannounced reprovisionings that disrupt service.)

When we called the second day, we got blown off pretty much the same way. Even when we requested to speak with management.

Friday rolls around. Still no functioning bandwidth, though the cable light that indicates we are supposedly recieving signal was back on. One comes and goes. Two comes and goes. Cambion gets irate and calls them from work. They tell him the cableguy is en route. Three comes and goes. Four rolls around and so does the cableguy. And so do his dirty boots on my freshly cleaned carpets.

Obviously he thinks the wierd little blue haired chick can't possibly have an ounce of clue. He power cycles the 'cablemodem'. (It's not a modem, you luddite! It's a bridge!!!) He makes free with Cambion's computer, turning it on and messing with the network settings. I warn him that we have a NATed network running from net to bridge to Cisco router to the four machines in our home and that changes to any machine TCPIP settings will make a hash of things. So he makes changes to the TCPIP settings. And looks puzzled because he can't get a browser page to load. DUH!!! THEN he starts unplugging ethernet cabling and plugging it back in in the wrong order.

Needless to say I've become an angry ball of female impatience by this time. So I call Cambion at work, explain the situation then pass mister idiot cableguy the phone. Cambion is a backbone engineer. He knows exactly what he's talking about in all things network and bandwidth related. It's why HE still has a job while most people are either pushing fast food or pulling unemployment. This guy treats CAM like a freaking n00b, while further making a bollox of our network.

After an hour of totally destroying our setup, he decides he's going to prove the problem's in our apartment by bringing in his own 'cablemodem' and laptop and showing me web pages. It takes him 20 minutes and two phonecalls for him to accomplish this, all the while speaking as low as he can so I can't hear him having the line reprovisioned back to where HIS crap can recieve signal. (Which I most certainly can, since I'm not deaf, I'm standing right next to him and I'm not a total Amish plebe.) OMFGz N00B! Then he shows me his stupid browser.

My response is, "well isn't that nice. You got them to reprovision it (from changes that they didn't make last time we asked) back. But it doesn't change the fact that MY machines aren't connected to the net." I'm showing a great deal of restraint in not pointing out that he's totally fucked up my network and tracked dirt on my clean carpeting.

His response was the utter LAMENESS! He tells me that my network isn't his problem and that he's proved that we're getting signal so his job is done. "Oh sorry I was late." He leaves and we STILL are internet-free. I'm feeling pretty evil at this point. Another call to my man the Backbone Engineer to update him on the situation. From work, he escalates up their sad, non-caring, totally slack-ass management chain, into their pathetic excuse for a NOC and up THAT chain. They still refuse to admit the reprovisioning and there's no "uh yeh sorry we changed our DHCP to this utterly obscure channel that nothing but the most recent Cisco IOS can interact with". There is only, "sorry we don't support Cisco. You're on your own."

I go out to play pool with my buddies because if I look at my totally isolated machine for one more second I'm going to get myself slammed with a lawsuit for the flash Cox-slamming internet commercial I'm dreaming up to punish their stupid, lazy, incompetent sheister asses with. "Cox Communications... when you just want to throw your money away on a service you won't get." With Ministry's "Theives" playing in the background and animated images of dope-smoking jackasses invading your home and turning your nicely ordered network into a big tangle of ethernet cable and stuff.

I'm home now. Cambion forced someone to tell him what they'd done. He completely redid our network so that it's running again. He updated our Cisco's IOS so that the stupid DHCP servers don't think it's another cable bridge. And once again our home is connected again.

THREE DAYS of UTTER BULLCRAP and NO NET CONNECTION for something that would have taken us fifteen minutes TOPS if the cockmongering ass-spelunkers at Cox Communications would have just said, "yeh we did this. Sorry about the bad reprovisioning. We put it back, but you'll need to update your Cisco's IOS on your own."

The lesson of this story is: Buy DSL.

I missed you guys. See you tomorrow.

[Xtrophic]

Wow, that's an interesting story.
Knowing networks quite well myself I laughed my ass off at then n00b technician they sent out. Pisses me off every time I talk to them, so I always start off with saying that I am a professional network tecnician myself and whatever they are goign to say I've already tried twice.

Anyway, glad you had a friend who could help you out, and update what needed to be updated so that once again you could have net access!

[Oddysee]

Wow... Quite the ordeal! Glad you're back on tho', having no net sucks!




Tm

[dfclock]

I wish I had Xtrophic as my neibor, that would rock instead of having to call comcast cable half a week before they get here and dont know how to fix things.

[Synnastacia]

comcast cable...lol...
1 in 10 chance your installer/service tech has working knowledge of windows...

-tier 1 support to annoy the customers,

-tier 3 support to ignore what they are supposed to be monitoring,

-tier 2 support to get stressed out fixing field screw-ups, helping tier 1 annoyed customers, being ignored by tier 3 when problems on the system are noticed that the "monitor" tier 3 is supposed to find and take care of before it's a problem. comcast has competitent people, trust me, they're just misplaced job-wise and have to deal with all the idiots.

i used to work there, i'm sure it's obvious where i fit in, as i don't miss it at all... except maybe the free services which were great when the network was up and the third party had my mail servers online.

[Ichyro]

comcast cable...lol...
1 in 10 chance your installer/service tech has working knowledge of windows...

-tier 1 support to annoy the customers,

-tier 3 support to ignore what they are supposed to be monitoring,

-tier 2 support to get stressed out fixing field screw-ups, helping tier 1 annoyed customers, being ignored by tier 3 when problems on the system are noticed that the "monitor" tier 3 is supposed to find and take care of before it's a problem. comcast has competitent people, trust me, they're just misplaced job-wise and have to deal with all the idiots.

i used to work there, i'm sure it's obvious where i fit in, as i don't miss it at all... except maybe the free services which were great when the network was up and the third party had my mail servers online.

Took the words right out of my mouth.

Still, they've been the best internet provider I've had so far, so I guess until I hear of a better one I'd stick with it.

And personally, a company that sounds like Cocks...um, don't expect them to be thinking with their upper heads.

That does suck though, sorry to hear you're getting so much bullsh*t SaintBootay.

Missed you too Saint. *Hugz* Did not miss much.

[Firia]

Around these parts, I've got two choices;

- Scary satanic evil DSL provider "Qwest" that doesn't give a rip about you.
or
- Slightly less evil counterpart but dumber than bullcrap "Comcast" cable.

There are no others that I know of. There is no greater hope. Your choices are "Ahhh!! " and " AHHHH!!

We use comcast. Qwest was to keen with bending us over their table and doing us rotton. (Plus with comcast, we havn't paid the bill in over 3 months and we still have a connection. ^_^)

[Sergeiovich]

Time Warner Road Runner is what I get here. No connectivity issues, no billing issues... and a HECK of alot better than SBC DSL.

[Tacz]

Sergei, Ive got the same plan, and I LOVE it! The connection is great, and the speed is considerable. If at all possible, seek out Time Warner Road-Runner cable. And, no, I wasnt paid for this. *flies away in his Stiletto to his new Jobe mansion*

[dfclock]

you're just like ALL THE REST... *finaly puts hands in pockets, puts on his cap, and walks away.*

[Oddysee]

Isn't it hard puttin your cap on... While having your hands in your pockets?
*/me ponders...*



Tm

[Boinky]

Why did you not kill that guy? Many before have murdered in the heat of passion, buried the body, and got away with it.

/me bows to the restraint of teh Bootay!

[Darth Bootay]

I didn't think my cat would eat him all.

Though I must say, I was having violent fantasies about strangling him with ethernet cable, then poking him full of holes with Cambion's RC truck body reamer tool. But that would have REALLY made a mess.

[Firia]

blood is SUCH a pain to get out of the carpeting. ^_^ I don't recomend trying. Just get new carpeting if you're ever poised with the problem.

[HeadCase]

Every encounter I have had with DSL was a slow, mind numbing, bottlenecked exploration of nerve-testing and brain dumping. I have Cox cable and have had zero problems since initializing my account. Granted, I never once installed their software and use my own modem and setup, but I get insanely fast speeds, can use teamspeak, GSP and AO with no connectivity issues and sometimes even run a downloading program in the background. *shrug* I am thinking maybe the tech support in your area just sucks and you just had a bad run-in, but then again... dunno. My 2 credits...or 3

[Tastyvixen]

I had calbe for about a total of two weeks. The whole time of which I had no access to it. Pretty much the same responce Bootay was getting. Cox sucks ass if you every have to deal with their CS department. I'm on DSL and most of the time its pretty smooth. Its the cable I hear nothing but bad things about around here.