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Comment by pwerner2 | Hacker News Reader

Former Comcast cable technician here. I was an in-house tech, and corporate has ludicrous quality standards and nitpicky, white-glove QC's after an in-house tech leaves a job. However, the company obviously employs a TON of _independent contractors_. Some of these contractors are excellent at their jobs, but a lot of them aren't, and as they're not subject to any real oversight by the corporation, you really don't know what you're going to get. At least, this was the case at the office I worked out of. Based on my experience (and I worked at the company for a while), this is almost definitely 100% true, but it's probably a contractor or an individual corporate tech being lazy, instead of malicious action on the part of Comcast.

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Very hard to believe the company has'ludicrous' quality standards but at the same time works with so many bad contractors without putting controls in place. I don't buy it.

It's quite easy to believe a company has much higher quality standards for things it can blame on some other actor that it nominally doesn't control.

Outsourcing blame is fairly common.

I've literally never heard of anyone impressed with the quality standard on a single service Comcast provides soooo...gonna call bullshit on this, too.

their business service is somewhat responsive and pretty reliable. That said, the installer they sent was totally unprofessional and also, yes, a contractor.

How can you screw up just connecting a cable modem to a coax outlet?

Run two lengths of cable connected by a four port adapter, and staple the adapter to the wall a foot above the baseboard because why not, this is only in the middle of someone's dining room.

As soon as he left I disconnected the whole mess and ran a single length of cable along the baseboard, with a right angle connector to keep it flush.

I can believe that they have some small 'gold standard' team like this that they reserve for... say the houses that their lobbyists visit.

"I don't buy it"

Ah, sorry, I forgot I was on the internet, land of experts in everything.

More like people who have had to deal with Comcast. Thankfully, I'm in rural ND where I can get good fiber and not the crap my Dad has had to put up with. The number of splitters in the wall was impressive though.

I've had to deal with Comcast. I've known independent cable installation contractors, too, one of them being an uncle of mine - this being back when his crack habit was in full swing.

I find it a lot easier to buy a wide variance in skill and diligence among contractors, combined with a lack of QA oversight from their monopolistically disinterested corporate client, than I do some kind of shadowy, wide-ranging conspiracy to cloak deliberately anticompetitive behavior behind an obfuscating smokescreen of apparent incompetence.

Excessive splitters usually is a sign of ancient cabling as well. I know for a fact that Comcast has passive gain amps specifically built for dealing with homes that have more than like 8 tv's and a modem. You (or your dad, it's unclear) probably were hooked up a long time ago, or the tech didn't know what he was doing.

When I have internet issues, sometimes the techs actually install splitters that don't do anything because, "the signal is too strong."

> instead of malicious action on the part of Comcast.

Im not so sure of that. The destruction occurred from June 15th to Aug 1st (when they lost their last customer) -- thats 6 weeks -- using over 4000ft of cable for repairs.

If comcast was notified after the first incident, and it continued for 6 weeks.. doesn't that indicate malicious intent?

In addition to that, Telecom Cable also accused Comcast of systematically cutting the lines leading to every single one of their customers. They argue that if the damage were accidental it would not have been as comprehensive.

Comcast is huge, and again, a lot of the techs are independent. Some of the employees, especially management are totally incompetent too. Ever been to the DMV? Now imagine that they're the ones hooking up your internet. That's Comcast.

The DMV didn't cut my friend's brake cables when I went in to get my driver's license.

The DMVs I go to are staffed by highly-competent but over-worked and underpaid folks.

I have learned which ones to not go to though. Some are worse than others. I know of an out of the way office that is never very busy. (actually this office is more convenient than the much bigger overcrowded one everyone around me uses)

The DMV I go to is usually slammed, but they have a decent queue system so I only wait about 10 minutes. It used to be a joke that the government was inefficient and companies were bastions of efficiency and customer service. That's how bad the US has gotten. We run a sham economy.

Intentionally cutting lines that don't need to be cut to do your install is more than just "lazy".

It should be called criminal Damage.

It doesn't matter. If they are contractors working for Comcast, then Comcast should be held 100% liable.

Outsourcing has no bearing on who is responsible for the problem.

Technically the way the US legal system works, the expected outcome is that Comcast loses, pays this company, and then sues their independent contractors to recover the damages they had to pay out.

That's how it's supposed to work. How it actually works is that the contractor is probably going to get a new giant contract with Comcast.

If a contractor did it, the company isn't liable. It's precisely why Uber fights so hard to keep drivers classified as contractors rather than employees.

Legally speaking, you are likely correct. I'm saying that they should be.

If you hire a contractor to trim your trees, should you be liable if they drop a branch on your neighbor's roof?

If you've been repeatedly informed that the contractors make no attempt to prevent damage and are unsafe to retain and you don't make sure the contractor has his own insurance to cover damage liability? Yes, I'd say so.

Yes, I don't see why not.

I should be able to also sue the contractor or something, but ultimately my neighbor should absolutely be able to blame me.

You're right. I was just trying to give some insight into why the quality of work varies so much.

> However, the company obviously employs a TON of _independent contractors_.

They are contractors and do what Comcast tell them. "It was a contractor" is the laziest corporate excuse. But that's one reason why big businesses employ them, plausible deniability when things go wrong.

Yeah, it's weird that the OP emphasizes their contractor status. What they are is undertrained and incompetent employees. What kind of tax form they get is completely irrelevant.

Once is an accident. Twice is incompetence. Thrice is intentional. What was described in the story is just pure malice.

They cut three more lines as the guy was on the phone trying to complain to Comcast about the first cut. Comcast was given a map, and from the story, it looks like they used it to pre-plan the willful destruction of someone else's business and livelihood.

If there was a lack of training, it was a dearth of ethics classes. If there was a lack of competence, it was in devising plausible excuses for the cuts.

This is why I "happily" pay extra for Comcast Business Internet. Completely separate call center and 100% in-house techs. It also probably helps that a Comcast field supervisor lives in my building (now if he'd just stop blocking the %$#@ driveway with his van...)

I don't think "100% in-house techs" is right. I have Comcast Business and my line was recently cut (probably an accident by apartment maintenance). The tech who came out and put in a temporary line was from Comcast, but he said a contractor would come out at some point in the future to put in a permanent one (hence, he could not guarantee that I could get a notification when it would happen).

Interesting. I've had techs out several times in Santa Clara, both for installs and for repairs/troubleshooting, and it's always been a Comcast employee in a Comcast Business van.

I've had contractors come in vans with official Comcast insignia on the side.

That's because they have a different team to do burials.

I have three Comcast Business Installs. The phone support service is superior but the techs are outsourced. We had one good one do two installs and one horrible once completely botch an install just today.

I would have to say that hiring all those crappy contractors is malicious action on the part of Comcast.

In a near-monopoly situation: Never attribute to stupidity that which is adequately explained by malice.

Not requiring sub-contractors go through the same "ludicrous quality standards" is a lazy, malicious act on the part of Comcast

> instead of malicious action on the part of Comcast.

Incompetence (by me, by you, etc.) may be just incompetence.

Incompetence by a Corporation is malicious action.

Possibly not the specific case, but the ludicrous quality standard is in itself malicious action.

I am astonished. This is not a complicated issue. This is sensationalism. Before any of you "vote" on anything, consider exactly what it is that you're criticising. As it is, I'll bet almost all of you have never turned a wrench, let alone crawled into some ungrateful asshole's filthy attic or appalling, sewage filled crawlspace to replace a corroded cable fitting so said customer could spank his monkey at 3am to shitty cable porn, or worse, play farmville, and made < $15/hour doing it.

We are talking about a very delicate electrical system that cannot function effectively outside of a specific radio bandwidth before being completely overtaken by the numerous sources of RF which exist in the world. Remember radios? Well, they got their name because they were the receivers of "radiated" "waves" in the air. As were TV's. Guess what? That coax line in your house? That's the modern version of an antenna. CATV literally means "community antenna television". It's an antenna that you share with everyone on the same "node" of your cable system. It's shielded so the RF no longer has to go through the air. In effect, if there is a breach in the shielding around that cable (a long antenna), you're going to get noise, and crappy service. Additionally, your precious internet rides on the highest frequencies carried by this sole, frail copper wire. Those high frequencies, as any EE student can tell you, are especially highly susceptible to interference. A single dB can make all the difference for your highly calibrated, sensitive cable modem that you don't fully appreciate. Some of these networks are huge. If one of your neighbors got high and plugged a blender in, anywhere in his home, and he has frayed cable jacketing, anywhere in his home, or a bad fitting, anywhere in his home, it can easily take an entire block down. There are hubs, of course, but don't count on one being nearby, if you're tasked with repairing someone's internet. I get it, "fuck Comcast, they're the devil because I have to give them money", but let's be adults here. Comcast is people. Every company is people.

Sure, every company is made up of people. Comcast just happens to be made up of a lot of people lacking integrity. It's part of the company culture, trickling down from the top.

the wise man bowed his head solemnly and spoke: "theres actually zero difference between good & bad things. you imbecile. you fucking moron"

-dril

Is this your version of a parody of the Cable Guy?

I previously worked inside Comcast systems for 10 years, I am always amazed by the competence and dedication to quality and service on the part of their engineering and technical operations staff.

It makes me a bit sad that these guys do really great work and then the press are able to have all these terrible things to write about customer service reps, megacorp lobbying and conspiracies, and some hotspots of technical problems.

What planet are you from? I have nothing but negative things to say about comcast and the quality of comcast products

I fully believe the press because as a customer of comcast they treated me like a turd on the sidewalk

To be fair, every exchange I've heard of with Comcast's actual network tech/admin people has given me the impression that they're extremely good at their jobs. Almost all of the problems I hear about with Comcast are related to extraordinarily poor customer service, neglected outside plant, or customer-hostile policy decisions.

I am sure they are getting blamed for customer premises wiring faults too.

I wish people didn't have to deal with their terrible CSR's. I think they are more inclined to sell HBO rather than communicate a useful fault report to technical staff.

I was also treated differently as a customer once I got insider connections.

It's not a 'conspiracy', Comcast really is just awful for the average person.

Comcast execs would literally stick it in your fart maker if they had the chance.

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