Bad, really, really bad for public relations
Pollak, Melissa F.
An announcement was made at a party tonight at my condo building. To celebrate being snowed in?
Apparently Comcast service is out in the entire Washington, D.C. area and probably won't be back on until Wednesday.
I'm not looking forward to no TV (except a 7 inch digital that gets only NBC and ABC), internet, or (landline) phone.
I'm only online now because my neighbor across the hall was able to set up a wireless connection with his broadband card.
If true, it's ironic that the outage is in the area where all the decision makers live.
Jason Carpio
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Kevin M.
>> If true, it's ironic that the outage is in the area where all the decision
>> makers live.
Maybe, without their Superbowl Sunday, Twitter, or Facebook, they
might get something accomplished between now and Wednesday.
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Kevin M. (RPCV)
PGage
chi...@nc.rr.com
~D
David Bruggeman
Pollak, Melissa F.
From: tvor...@googlegroups.com [mailto:tvor...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of David Bruggeman
Sent: Sunday, February 07, 2010 5:38 AM
To: tvor...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [TV orNotTV] Bad, really, really bad for public relations
Pollak, Melissa F.
From: tvor...@googlegroups.com [mailto:tvor...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of PGage
Sent: Sunday, February 07, 2010 1:06 AM
K.M. Richards
> Apparently Comcast service is out in the entire Washington, D.C. area
> and probably won't be back on until Wednesday.
>
> I'm not looking forward to no TV (except a 7 inch digital that gets only
> NBC and ABC), internet, or (landline) phone.
I was working for Pacific Bell/SBC (now AT&T) during the years that
the cable companies started getting into telephone service, and one
thing that I remember from the documentation we were all provided as
"ammunition" to keep customers from switching is that the traditional
wired telcos (AT&T, Verizon, Qwest) all have backup power systems at
the central offices. That means that, even in a major emergency with
widespread and long-lasting outages of electricity, there will always
be a dial tone from a traditional landline phone from a telco.
The joke we used to tell was that "the cable companies want you to
switch to them because then you won't be able to call them when the
cable goes out" (this was in the mid- to late-90s, before cellular
service was ubiquitous) and I remember that when the Northridge,
California earthquake hit in 1994, even though my phone got knocked
off the hook and buried under a pile of books and papers that came
down (I was a couple of miles due east of the epicenter but had no
structural damage because the wave traveled on a northwest/southeast
diagonal), the dial tone got shut down automatically by the central
office switch as the standard precaution after five minutes of no
dialing activity but when I restored the dial tone by hanging up for a
minute to let the switch reset, I picked up to the familiar stuttering
tone that meant I had voicemail messages. 22 of them, in fact, none
of which I would have received except that the backup power at the
central office kept everything online and the switch, seeing what
amounted to an off-hook condition on my line, routed all my calls to
voicemail.
Perhaps this longer-term Comcast outage will make some people realize
it's not a bad thing to keep your wired phone service with your
telco. David's notation that Verizon is still up and running is a
case in point.
(Oh, and something else I have learned from friends who still work at
AT&T: In a widespread disaster, your cell phone isn't going to work
either, because of the way the wireless infrastructure works ... or
rather, won't work under those circumstances. Text messaging *may*
work, but no one guarantees that either. I have to presume that
Melissa's neighbor's broadband connection, because it still works, is
either fiber-optic or DSL, or it likely wouldn't be working now
either.)
Jim Ellwanger
> (Oh, and something else I have learned from friends who still work at
> AT&T: In a widespread disaster, your cell phone isn't going to work
> either, because of the way the wireless infrastructure works ... or
> rather, won't work under those circumstances. Text messaging *may*
> work, but no one guarantees that either...
Absolutely -- when there was a relatively minor earthquake in L.A. during the work day a while back, the first reaction of many of my coworkers was to 1) evacuate the building, and 2) attempt to use their cell phones to call to check on their kids and/or significant others. 1) was not a good idea, and 2) didn't work; no one could get a call through.
I've since joined the company emergency response team, which officially empowers me to yell at people during earthquakes.
--
Jim Ellwanger <trai...@ellwanger.tv>
<http://www.ellwanger.tv>
David Bruggeman
Pollak, Melissa F.
the cable went out -- because I have a pay-as-you- go cell phone and I
didn't want to waste an unknown number of minutes on hold. BTW, not
that it really makes any difference, but I have Vonage and not Comcast
as my landline service. Awhile back I signed up with Vonage to have
calls forwarded to my cell phone in case of a power outage. I didn't
know if that meant just a power outage (which I didn't have) or if it
included the cable going out. Well, calls were forwarded, which is good
to know.
I actually was in favor of the cable companies getting into the
telephone business -- because I thought it would increase the
reliability of my cable service -- and I believe it has. In other
words, I thought the company would be more on the ball about preventing
and addressing problems if it had the potential to be bombarded with
complaints by those having no phone service. As I said, I believe it's
worked out that way. I've had almost no problems with my TV and
internet service, a big improvement, since Comcast started offering
phone service.
My neighbor across the hall works for Sprint and I think it was his
Sprint broadband card that he used to set up a wireless connection which
enabled me to tap into it once he gave me the name and password.
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From: tvor...@googlegroups.com [mailto:tvor...@googlegroups.com] On
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Wesley McGee
Doubly so since without phone at present and am using Skype until we can get phone back on.