Not-so-targeted Marketing

I've been a Comcast customer for almost five years now, and mostly have no complaints. Sure, there was the ordeal at the end of 2007 when they took away the Hallmark Channel, but I moved past that and have been pretty happy with my digital cable service (you can quote me if you'd like Frank :).

But sometimes, they do the stupidest things. No, I don't mean their commercials - who can fault them for hiring an inept advertising agency. I'm referring to the most recent promotion I received in the mail. It was a special offer for one free On Demand movie. All I needed to do was to fill out the back of the enclosed coupon and send it in with next month's payment.

Sounds easy enough, but there are two problems with it:

1. We don't send in our payments. We pay electronically - we save Comcast money by doing this (they don't need to print our bill, nor pay for the postage), and at the same time, we're saving the environment (and making the lives of our local postal workers a bit easier). No payment to send in, no way to return the coupon.
   
   
2. We don't have a cable box, which is required for watching On Demand movies. We have digital cable, of course, but we went with a cable card in our TivoHD (Tivo rocks, more so with its 1TB drive!) rather than a cable box/DVR combination from Comcast.
   

Sadly, Comcast knew both of these things - they know we pay our bill electronically and they know we have CableCards (we get billed for these each month). Perhaps future promotions could be just a teeny weeny bit more targeted? You know, check to see if something actually applies to me before sending it to me maybe?

Let's get digital!

I broke down. I'm embarrassed to say it, but I gave in and signed up for digital TV from Comcast (aka "the man"). I think I did it because I wanted the Hallmark channel back, or maybe I did it because I saw an ad for a Tivo HD ($249 at Frys) which I decided I couldn't live without (it's replacing my SnapStream BeyondTV and Hauppauge MediaMVP)

It doesn't matter why, but I did it. After many calls to Comcast, I was happy that I could get a decent plan that had the things I wanted (basic digital cable, with local channels in HD), and, most important, no cable box

The appointment was set for between noon and 4pm on Tuesday; Comcast even called to make sure someone would be home. they called three times in fact. They called on Saturday. Then they called at 11:30am on Tuesday and left a message. I called them back and confirmed. They called again at 1pm. Sheesh, you people worry too much.

CableBoy showed up at 2:30pm and we discussed his mission - install an M- CableCard™ in the Tivo, and an S- CableCard™ in my TV. Seemed straightforward to me, and to the person I scheduled the appointment with who was fluent in CableCard™-speak. But not so with CableBoy.

He had never seen a TivoHD, so he didn't believe that it could operate both digital tuners with a single M- CableCard™. I showed him the Tivo documentation. Nope, not a believer. I told him the "M" meant multi-stream. Nothing still. So he called his colleague - characterized as the Tivo HD "Subject Matter Expert." The SME confirmed what I said, but pointed out that I couldn't get OnDemand nor Pay-Per-View (BFD).

Alas, CableBoy only had S-cards with him (he refered to them as "the green ones"), no M-cards ("the pink ones"). SME pointed out that there were two slots in my Tivo, so two S-cards would work fine. Yes, they would, but, as I pointed out, I'd then be paying for a third card; at $1.79/month, it adds up, so CableBoy got a timeout and sat in his truck until a colleague with "the pink ones" arrived.

Installation started with CableBoy testing the cable that went from my surge protector to the TV/Tivo (through a splitter). He decided, I guess, that he didn't like what he saw, because he installed his own splitter, bypassing my surge protector completely.

The rest of the install was fine, apart from a mistyped ID somewhere that initially prevented the M-card from pairing. CableBoy tested the encrypted channels on the Tivo, they worked fine. I asked him to test the ones on the TV, he said "they won't work." Why, I asked (like a two year old?). He said "because the TV needs a cable box for that." Err, isn't that why we put a CableCard™ in there? He gave in and tuned the TV to channel 702, and magically it worked.

As he was packing up to leave, I asked him about the splitter he had installed. He said it was necessary. I pointed out that it now bypassed my surge protector. He said that wasn't a problem, the cable was grounded outside (didn't inspire confidence). I asked what was wrong with my surge protector. He said "you can't have anything between the cable and our device (the CableCard™).

I was going to point out that a mere 8 feet below him, in the white box on the garage wall was a big freaking amplifier that was effectively sitting between "the cable" and his device, but thought that would make him cry, so I let him off easy - Merry Christmas CableBoy.