Today, tech comes, checks & verifies that I have a -2dB signal. Good I think, problem found, so they'll do something to bring the quality up. Well it didn't go quite that way. 1st he tells me I have to replace my Motorola SB-3100 because "it's not support & is part of the problem." So I ask what he means by this and he doesn't know other than it's not supported even if it is working, etc.... Then proceeds to tell me that a -10 should be OK never mind a -2. He goes down & changes my connectors at the demarc to the newer compression ones. Still -2 comes up and I'm supposed to live with it. Sign his sheet & off he goes (oh and he was over an hour late missing a 1-3pm window). grrr....
Being that my connection was up, I decide to visit the online support chat people & ask some questions about the "unsupported" modem. The nice woman on the other end tells me that I need a docsis 2.0 modem or I won't be able to get the latest speed increase they're working on. Then retracts that & says docsis 1.1 compliant and I ask "is not the 3100 docsis 1.1?" BANG! down goes my connection, hard.
Now I'm forced to get on my CELL PHONE and call their horrid tech support (in Florida it seems). 10min goes by on hold, finally ring ring.... ring ring ring, no one picks up??? Call back and end up talking to some idiot for like 45min about my browser cache & to remove my firewall, etc... Turns out the last crash was the firewall (likely do to all the up/down of the modem), reboot it & I'm back up. Back to the modem issue he can't tell me what makes my modem out of date & why it still works at all if it's "unsupported" or how it won't work after whatever upgrade is being done.
Still not having gotten a solid answer on the -2 signal, I ask for a definitive answer/source on what the signal strength should be coming in. He again starts telling me to cycle the power, empty my cache, remove the firewall, etc... until I cut him off & rant about the signal strength not being a function of any of that. Finally I decide my cell phone minutes are more valuable than trashing some page flipper so I start to get off phone with statement about waiting until the regional work is done & seeing how that effects things when I notice my CH4 & 5 are full of noise. Already resigned to not wasting more cell minutes I bitch briefly about the tv now being f'cked up & how for $100/mo the service should be a hell of a lot better, blah blah, click.
End result is they are doing some kind of work "upgrading" the network but no one at the local office seemed to know this when I called yesterday plus the cable tech & tech support people were basically trying to get me to buy/rent a new modem w/o knowing their asshole from a black hole concerning what makes my 1.1 modem different from some RCA modem they want me to buy or rent to support "future upgrades".
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