Problems with adelphia cable modem service

Hi, I have adelphia cable modem service. Perhaps I should call it "dis-service". The biggest problem I have with Adelphia is their customer service. I guess I should be happy, eh? I mean, it is a bankrupt company whose former CEO's were all crooks, namely the Rigas brothers.

But if you have a problem with the internet service you have to call their 888-683-1000 number. You no longer are supposed to be able to call their local number although if you do and are creative usually you can get through to someone.

Usually all I want to do is let them know that the service is down. I'll carefully verify it isn't my hardware, and then I want to call them to let them know.

I might as well be asking for Middle-eastern peace. They want to be sure it's not your hardware that's the problem. Often I've spent over an hour going through the whole system with their tech support people. I've done this many dozens of times. I almost wonder if they don't do this just to discourage you from calling.

So there is an option. Their corporate headquarters is in Colorado Springs, CO now after they moved from Coudersport, PA. The phone number there is a closely guarded secret, or so some of their employees contend. It is 303-268-6300. Ask to speak to Johnny Meeks in the Presidents office, or the President himself, Ron Cooper, or even the CEO, William Schleyer.

Sometimes it works to talk to them. But it doesn't help to be rude to them as that just gives them the excuse to write you off as a nut.

In getting the phone number I mentioned the fact that I saw many dozens of people online complaining about their service. Their response was "we know we have issues". Well, FIX IT ALREADY.

Also, if you are having problems, complain to your local BBB, your local city council (as they approve licenses locally), to your state attorney general's office, and the public utility commision. You do not have to put up with lousey service from Adelphia, but you do have to fight like hell to get good service.

Dealing with Adelphia has been good for me. When I have to wait in huge lines at the Post Office, or deal with a huge morass of rules with the IRS, or deal with utter incompetance at the Dept. of Veteran's Affairs or the Social Security Administration, I can always say "Well at least it's not as bad as Adelphia".

Unless the outage is between your cablemodem and the tap for the drop, the engineering folks will know before you can call customer service. (Customer service likely won't be notified unless the outage is going to be an extended one.)

They do this because 80%+ of the calls to ISP's involve customer equipment or software, and do not involve outages. If the outage is a network outage, as I said, engineering will know without you calling. If it's not a network outage, before they spend the money to roll a truck out to you, they need to eliminate the far more possible situation that it's a problem on your end that can be corrected over the phone.

To put it a little plainer, if they *didn't* take the time to do this with you, and treated everyone the special way you wish to be treated, the cost of providing the service would increase exponentially.