| A Comedy of Errors and Misinformation
DISCLAIMER - This is a rant. I don't mean to make this thread into a "we hate telecoms" flamefest. I just had what I consider to be a funny (and sad) experience that I wanted to share.
So, I'm married and the wife and I have moved in together, to my apartment since it was the larger (and cheaper) of the two we were renting. Previously we had relied on Netflix and her Verizon cellular internet dongle for our TV and internet fixes, respectively.
For circumstances I won't go into here, we have canceled the Verizon dongle and signed up for cable TV and broadband from our local cable provider. We should have it by this weekend.
The interesting part was when I called around to try and find the best TV/internet deal in our area. We have 2 monopolies available: Suddenlink (cable) and Embarq (phone). Having a bad history with the cable company in my wife's old apartment I tried Embarq first. I called a 1-800 number I found in their site.
Embarq
The operator told me he could offer me phone, satellite, and DSL all for a low, low price of... WAIT!! He refused to actually quote me a price unless I gave him my social security number over the phone first. No go. I told him I'd call back if I ever took leave of my senses in the future and hung up.
I don't know if the UK has an equivalent to SSN, but basically it's a number every citizen is given that's connected to important things like taxes, credit rating, etc. It's supposed to remain secret unless absolutely necessary for things like opening a new credit or bank account or applying for a loan. Pardon me if I wasn't keen on giving it out for what amounted to an over-the-phone advertisement.
I hung up, let myself cool off and called again. I got a different person who gladly gave me a quote but said, "Oh, I'm sorry. It looks like we can't offer DSL service to you, only local phone and satellite TV." We're not interested in local phone, just TV and internet, so that was a no go.
On a whim, I called a third time. This time I called the local Embarq office in my city. This guy had yet another story. He quoted me a price and said yes, they do offer TV, internet and phone. Good.
The next day I called that same local office again to set up a time and the same guy answered. This time he said the "computer wouldn't let him do internet for our address." He said even though other people in my complex have internet/TV/phone, he couldn't offer that same deal to me. I asked why, and he repeated that "the computer" wouldn't let him. I hung up.
Suddenlink
My wife meanwhile called the cable company, via a 1-800 number on their website. The man she talked to said they were having a deal for up to 8MB/s broadband and the mid-range cable package for $99 a month. He also said part of the deal was a free cable modem. She told me this and I followed up the next day.
Call number 2, different person and a different story. This time we were told that there was no "free cable modem" deal, but the price quoted before was correct. Just add another $3.95/month for the modem. This person also said that we'd need 2 coaxial cable jacks in our home to run cable and internet through. My apartment building is roughly 30 years old. It has one single coaxial cable jack. We asked if a splitter would work. They said no.
We asked if they could install another jack for us. They said no, the apartment complex usually does that. We called my complex office and they said (drum roll please...) they don't do that at all. It was up to us to have the cable company put it in. Circles.
I cooled off the rest of the day and called a third time. This time I called the local office. I spoke with Debbie who was very nice and informed me that the price for the service and modem were correct, but that we didn't need another jack. A splitter would work fine. I set up a time for the install and got a final quote on the costs.
The moral of this story? If the first offer doesn't work for you, keep on calling until you get one that does. I called these two companies multiple times and each person had a different (often contradictory) answer to the same questions. I'll post back if all goes well tomorrow during the installation (or not). | 
I would have had to have a beer post an afternoon of that.
Linear Mode
