Comcast, is a pain in the ass. Every couple weeks, I wake up to no internet access. The old cable modem is blinking, and the tv's got nothing but snow.

For a while there, I got lucky. I'd call Comcast support, and I'd get a tech that would listen to me, realize that well.. the tv, and the modem are separate entities, so I MUST have a service outage that's bigger than my cable modem.

This morning, and a couple weeks ago, I get stuck with the stupid techs.

"have you restarted your modem"
"have you torn down your entire network and burned the cables?"
"have you restarted your computer for some stupid reason?" (heh! which one?)

er... no.. because I don't have to. Just register a stupid ticket lady!!

It goes on and on like this.. Finally, I talk her into registering a ticket, she puts me on hold, comes back and says. "In registering a ticket I noticed there was an outage in your area"

Well no shit... The *good* techs I've talked to in the past have checked that first thing... why the hell are you checking it last.. after endlessly hassling me about it being my modem.. despite any logical reason why my modem would also bring down my TV!

I've been told by many techs that if enough people call, they escalate the problem and send out a tech. I'm really calling them for nothing more than to register a vote that they fix it..

I wish geeks could get a special card.. or a number. If I can be guaranteed I'd be getting a tech that won't treat me like I have the tech knowledge of Barney the dinosaur, that call could have been all of 30 seconds long.

me: "My cable is entirely down. Video and Internet, here's my phone number."
them: "there's an outage in your area"
me: "add me to the list. thanks"
them: "no problem *click*"

yeah.. i want a geek ID card that bypasses bullshit.

Net neutrality.. well.. basically.. without it, the net as you know it is borked. Pipe providers need to provide JUST a pipe and not give a crap about the traffic on it. Just like the colorado department of transportation should have no say in whether or not I can use the interstate in my car, or if I should have my own special speed limit because I'm not a corporation. ; )

Here's a pretty good sound byte sized summary video illustrating the problem.