My CableCard install was one of the most frustrating experiences I’ve ever had with Comcast, and that’s really saying something.
This is the most important thing to understand about the installation: A majority of Comcast employees either don’t know a thing about CableCards/TiVo or they actually have false assumptions about them. This includes the techs (contractors) who come out to “install” them.
Comcast first tried to tell me I needed a “TiVo Card”. Rusty mentioned that they told him the same thing, so it sounds like there is some slight misinformation regarding CableCards over at Comcast HQ. The FCC mandates that MSOs provide CableCards to any customer who asks, and that these CableCards are each compatible with any device on the CableLabs list of approved devices (including both HD TiVos). Any CableCard will work with any approved device. Comcast gets confused because they happen to stock some cards that Motorola or SA have put a TiVo logo on. I think these are S-Cards, but either way, the logo doesn’t matter. You just need any M-Card or two S-Cards.
I picked my card up from the Greenbriar Mall store because they are open on Saturdays and I didn’t want to pay for the truck roll. I then proceeded to spend about 4 hours on the phone with a whole parade of idiots who had absolutely no training on CableCards, as far as I could tell. They kept telling me that A) I needed a “TiVo Card”, B) there was something wrong with the TiVo itself, and finally C) the CableCard must be broken. And because I had read many of the TiVo Community forum threads, I kept calling back to try to “win the CSR lottery” and get someone who could actually help me. I never did. They all gave up and I finally gave in and let them schedule me a service call. (Though since it was for existing equipment rather than a “new install”, there was no fee.) I asked them twice to note on the account that the guy should bring extra M-Cards and S-Cards with him in case there was a hardware issue.
Anyway, the guy actually showed up during my service window and he had never set up a TiVo before. Installing the card yourself is essentially the same thing as having a tech come install it because one of you is going to be on the phone with customer service for a long time with mixed results. He fiddled with the menus a bit, tested my signal strength (which was very good), and had me restart the box twice, which takes ~8 minutes each time. No luck. I asked if he had any CableCards with him and he fumbled in his bag and said “Uh, I have this thing, is this one?” and pulled out a card. He had brought a single S-card and no new M-Cards. He finally determined that the card they gave me was assigned to the wrong billing region. They reset it, and the channels started working.
From what I understand, each of the following is necessary in order for your cable card to work:
- pairing - The Host (TiVo) has to be paired with the CableCard. This takes place at the head end and I believe has something to do with the encryption and keys and stuff. If the device isn’t paired with the card in their system, it can’t decrypt the cable signal. The CSRs on the phone seem to think they merely need the Serial Number to pair it, but they actually need the Serial Number, the Host ID, and the Data Value. Once the card is in your box, you can get these numbers off of the CableCard menus.
- activation - The card itself also has to be activated. I think this process just tells Comcast’s system that this is a valid serial number and that it’s tied to a customer’s account.
- billing region (don’t know if that’s the exact term) - The equipment (card) also has to be billed under the region where you get service. Apparently the Atlanta market is divided into two regions: Stone Mountain and Vinings. Not that you live in either, but I guess that’s where each location’s base of operations is, or whatever. I don’t know where the boundaries are, but they apparently don’t overlap. The Greenbriar mall store likes to give out CableCards tied to the Stone Mountain area, even if the customer is in the Vinings area. If your card is tied to the wrong billing area, it will not work in your device even if it is both active and paired. None of the CSRs I spoke with on the phone ever mentioned this, and they probably didn’t even know about it. This actually turned out to be the entire problem with our install.
Another tip - if, at some point, you reboot the TiVo and it says “Please wait.. this may take up to an hour or more”, don’t let your tech freak out and leave. It’s your first software update and it will only take 15-20 minutes. My box did this while he was trying to set it up and he very nearly left because he didn’t “have an hour to waste on TiVo’s issue.” I had to talk him into staying and just hope that it didn’t really take an hour. If I had let him leave, I would have had to go another few days without a working box because I would have had to reschedule. Major pain.
As you can see, I said very little about the hardware itself. Generally, if you can put the CableCard into the box and the TiVo recognizes it, it’s a working card. Comcast will try to tell you it’s not working, and I suppose it is possible, but it’s far more likely that it’s one of the myriad steps on their end that they may not even know they had to complete. That’s what was so frustrating about my four hours on the phone with them. Having read all of the horror stories, I knew that it was almost guaranteed that the issue was something that Comcast could fix on their end if they weren’t just ignorant. And in the end, I was right. The tech did nothing that I hadn’t already done; the phone reps just knew that they couldn’t pass him off like they could me and they eventually figured out what the problem was.
While the tech’s speakerphone was playing Comcast’s on-hold music for the third time, he asked “so what’s the big deal with these TiVos… Why do you want to go to so much trouble to use this instead of just using our DVR?” What I thought, but didn’t say, was that I want to depend on Comcast as little as possible for my cable TV experience. Their DVR/cable box is a physical manifestation of the organizational suckitude that permeates everything they do.
March 10th, 2008 at 4:21 pm
On behalf of Comcast, I sincerly apologize for the inconvenience.
Please be assured that your experience will be shared with our local local leaders so that the issue can be addressed. My executive contacts are better equipped to handle the problem, so I will have one of them follow up with you. If it is okay with you, will you please send me an email with your contact information?
Thank you in advance for giving us the opportunity to assist!
Sincerely,
Mark C.
Comcast Executive Offices
We_Can_Help@cable.comcast.com
March 12th, 2008 at 10:06 am
LOL at the last comment. Yeah, Comcast cares. At least they knew what the tivo was; I got mine right when the HD came out (almost a year after series 3), and they kept insisting that the cable card went in the TV, not the tivo. I kept showing him that it said “insert cable card here” on the tivo, but he just got on his nextel and his boss confirmed that they “didn’t know nothing about no tivo”. Needless to say, I did it for him, and it has worked fine since.
My experiences with Comcast have always been extremely painful and amazingly frustrating. I will be switching the SECOND I am given a viable option.
March 12th, 2008 at 10:14 am
Hear, hear. The problem is that your most likely alternative is going to be AT&T (Bellsouth), who, I can attest, is every bit as painful as Comcast to deal with.
March 12th, 2008 at 10:59 am
[…] recent adventures with Comcast and […]
March 12th, 2008 at 3:31 pm
Hi Duane,
I am sorry for the experience. Please know that Comcast is always looking for other ways to improve the way we serve our customers. To learn more about our Customer Care Improvements, please visit the following URL: http://www.comcast.com/Corporate/Customers/customercare.html
I appreciate your valuable feedback.
Sincerely,
Mark C.
Comcast Executive Office
We_Can_Help@cable.comcast.com
March 20th, 2008 at 8:39 am
I have had sporadic problems with my DSL cutting out for several days at a time. The most frustrating thing has been dealing with tech support. It’s painfully obvious that these reps — even “tier 3″ — are only reading from scripts that they don’t particularly understand. I typically felt like I knew more about computers and DSL (and how they work together) than the supposed “expert” I was talking to on the phone.
My last experience having to deal with my DSL company’s tech support has pushed me to order cable internet, even though I typically find dealing with Comcast to be a nightmare (at one time, I managed 4 Comcast accounts for work). I’m just hoping that the cable internet is faster and more reliable than our DSL connection and that I don’t have to deal with their help desk.
If all goes well with the internet access, I’m thinking that we may consider switching from DirecTV to Comcast. This is a pretty huge consideration for us, as I really have a low opinion of Comcast and their customer service. We’ve had DirecTV since 2001, when we moved into our house, and I have been pretty happy with them. I want an HD Tivo, though, and they don’t offer that as an option (they have their own proprietary DVR). I also don’t want to be locked into a 2-year commitment if I get HD television through them. So I’m thinking of making the plunge.
Thanks for the info on your experience, it is helping me brace for the unpleasantness to come. I can’t wait until there is a 3rd, Over-the-air media option so I can deal with someone other than AT&T or Comcast.
July 3rd, 2008 at 7:16 am
I personally would like to take Comcast to court and sue over their use of the word “Comcastic”…I don’t think the word should be used in any connection with what I have come to realize is the most difficult company I have ever dealt with !! They should take their spare time to work on consumer service and relations instead of making up stupid words !
August 19th, 2008 at 10:59 am
Comcast DVR is absolutely horrible. When you set a series recording to 1 episode and only new runs it just tapes the program over and over again. I use to have COX Cable and their DVR was fast and recorded only 1 episode when it was asked to. Comcast menu is also terrible. Cox had the logo of all their HD channel logo’s in the upper corner when you scroll through the menu to look for something to watch. If channel say channel 12 is WRXX COX menu lets you know that is CBS or NBC for whatever channel it is Comcast menu does not have that.
March 26th, 2009 at 3:05 pm
Garrett, I found your blog while searching the internet for the service hours at the Comcast - Greenbriar Mall location. So, in addition to providing me comfort by now knowing that I’m not the only person who has had to deal with the Cable card nightmare, you also provided me the Saturday working hours for the Greenbriar mall location. This is something that is virtually impossible to find on the Comcast website, not surprising. Apparently, its a highly guarded secret.
While here, I figured I’d share a little about my experiences with this issue. I say experiences because this has now happened to me twice. I completely agree that the concept of a Cable card is completely foreign to Comcast and it’s employees. I don’t know if this is due to a lack of training at Comcast or simply an attempt to get customer’s to switch over to the Comcast DVR. Food for thought but I digress. I endured exactly the same trauma as you when trying to get my Tivo HD set-up. However, having now transferred from Atlanta to Sacramento, I was lucky enough to receive the Comcast beat down not once, but twice. Both times, it required a trip to local Comcast ’store’ to get equipment that either didn’t work the first time or was left behind by the tech who failed to bring it with him, regardless of the fact that I expressly told them what to bring. As usual, Comcast failed to listen to their customer. Naturally, this does nothing but prolong the pain and suffering incurred by the very nature of simply being a Comcast customer. Anyway, upon arrival in Sacramento and conducting my initial set-up call to Comcast, I quickly realized that my service experience in California would be much the same as the one I was dealt in Atlanta. To Comcast’s credit, at least they are consistant. One always knows what to expect when dealing with Customer ‘Care’. Continuing on, when I left Atlanta I thought I would be smart and bring my cable card with me, assuring myself that I would avoid the installation headache because the card was already paired and authorized for my device. Unfortunately, such is not the case, as you pointed out earlier. Cable cards only work for specific regions. After this discovery, my installation experience in Sacramento was identical to that in Atlanta. In the end, it took me two weeks to get my Tivo up and running. And, this was done only after I guided the techs and customer service through what they needed to do. It’s a sad day when Comcast customers are more educated about Comcast services than the employees. Oh well, I guess knowing is half the battle. Maybe one day all of our dreams will come true and someone will start a cable provider that actually provides quality service, hardware, at a reasonable price. That shouldn’t be too much to ask, should it?