I have Adelphia cable modem service at home, and had to call customer service the other day when the system was out for nearly a day. The service technician said something very revealing. The person could not determine why the service was out, and said they would have to roll a truck to make a service call. She informed me it would take a week and a half to do so. I asked if they thought it was acceptable to have a customer be without Internet access for ten days or more, and added that I sometimes work from home. Here is what she said:
We are only providing an entertainment service.
This statement is stunning. "Only an entertainment service" indicates that Adelphia, which is now owned, in different parts, by Comcast, TimeWarner, and Cox, really has no clue about how important the Internet is to their customers.
It also means they will never be successful selling Voice over IP services over their cable networks, because no one wants to risk being without phone service for ten days, which is apparently okay with Adelphia/Cox/Comcast/TimeWarner.
This is not isolated to bankrupt Adelphia. A buddy of mine just quit his job as a network manager at Cox because of relentless cutbacks in customer service that made his job unbearable. The cable companies each have massive debt loads. They can't raise rates on broadband service because the phone companies have decided to fight via a price war. So the only way they can make any headway on debt is to cut customer service. Two years ago, Adelphia's Internet service was as flaky as it is today, but customer service was terrific; they could roll a truck the next day in most cases. And the phone tech support was much more responsive then that it is now.
For the first time, I am thinking seriously of switching to Verizon DSL, even though Verizon has awful customer service. But they understand (at least better than the phone companies, I think) that broadband is not just an "entertainment" service. I sure hope so. If they both think that, it is even more urgent that communities make investments that ensure an independent local broadband infrastructure.
Oh, and my service problem? It turned out the culprit, which I diagnosed myself, was the inline power surge supressor I installed just before the cable modem. If lightning strikes nearby and a power spike jumps onto the copper cable out in the yard, it will come straight into the house and can jump right through the cable modem to my computer and fry the thing. I have had the surge suppressor attached for a long time, but all of a sudden, the cable modem could not get a signal. The suppressor introduces a very small amount of signal attenuation, but the sudden and inexplicable failure highlights just what a fragile and antiquated system the Hybrid Fiber Coax (HFC) cable modem system is. My Internet is working at home, but without any lightning protection. I don't like that one bit.
The system should not be that sensitive to small amounts of attentuation in the first place, and in the second place, I should not be forced to use a copper-based system that lacks that kind of power surge protection. But hey! It's just an "entertainment" system! Why should the cable company care if a customer's televisions and computer are fried in a thunderstorm? It's just "entertainment."
And fiber? It's immune to lightning and power surges, making it really excellent for residential use.