The red side of the couch

For a while prior to the move I had a bit of a dilemma. I was stuck trying to figure out which of the two big companies I wanted to go with for my TV and Internet needs. I decided to forgo the land line leaving all of my contact needs to me cell phone. So far that’s been an interesting experience because I’m having to get used to not having the damn thing on vibrate. The few times I’ve left it on vibrate I’ve missed a couple of calls, which is bad news at a time like this when deliveries are coming in. Suddenly I’m wanting a better ringtone.

Anyway, back to the companies. In the end after talking to a few people that have worked and/or tried both services, I decided to go with the red side of the couch. Oh, you know the one. Well, the technicians came in yesterday to set things up for me. The modem went in without a hitch. The digital box on the other hand was rough sailing. After putting it in they tried a couple of channels. A good number of them were pixelizing (their word, not mine, really). Basically, some channels were blocky and lagging, while others didn’t show up at all. Over two hours they tried several hookup configurations but each one was still having issues. We were running close to the end of the appointment window and they had other people in the building to visit so they had to leave me with the faulty box. They promised however to come back after all of their appointments on the following day with a new box. They also told me to keep track of which channels were messing up. Well, overnight I scanned things and wrote down the problematic channels. There were a lot more than I expected. I also noticed that there was some diagonal banding going on, which looked like some sort of electrical interference coming from somewhere. Puzzling, no?

Today, they came a little bit early at 6 p.m. I figured it was really nice of them to come back on their own time to try to figure things out. Thus, I decided to put on my patient face. They swapped the box with a newer model, but found the same issues with the new box. At that point I could tell that they were getting really frustrated. Nothing was making sense. That’s when they started bringing out the big guns. They went into the hallway and popped open the electrical hookups closet. They took a long cable and ran it from the closet directly into my suite. To their surprise, all channels were appearing clearly. No pixelizing, no banding, no interference. At that point they knew it wasn’t the box. They decided to pop open the electrical panel to see the hookups to my suite. When they popped it open they had a eureka moment. There was a connection in there with a part known to cause issues. They looked irritated and blamed the whole incident on poor workmanship. They disconnected the hookup and put it back together with better parts (I guess). In the end, everything is now in great working condition.

So, I guess what I’m saying is that I’m quite happy with my decision to go with the red company. These technicians went the extra mile and made sure that the service I was getting was what I was paying for. Good show. Take what you will from this story. Yes, both the red and blue companies have issues and each has its share of horror stories–just look around the Internet for some, right? Still, in my case I had a great result.

Just so you know.

Possibly related posts:

1. Tempermental moody side
2. How I chose the couch
3. Red Day