Just thought I would share my rant about trying to upgrade to X1. Little background, we bought our house brand new 3 years ago, all rooms are wired and were tested by contractor/Comcast on initial install of the service, we never had an issue with internet/voice/TV. We have their Premier Triple Play bundle; 1 HD DVR, 2 HD Receivers. So fast forward to last Friday, day after Thanksgiving, I receive a big box for X1. New modem, 1 DVR and 2 Xi3s. Install new modem, took 30min to sync and start working. Install new DVR, works perfect. Install 1 Xi3 in the Family room (theater room) and it works. I go to our master bedroom, trying to punch in the account number/phone number for activation and it is extremely laggy. After 20min of messing around with it, I finally managed to get it activated, but then the channels would load up for couple seconds and go out. Box stops responding to remote commands, but I can see the box awknowleding the button presses on the LED bar of the box. I decided to try the new coaxial cable they included in the box, just for giggles, same thing. I took the none working box to the family room, it works there. I bring the box from family room to master bedroom, it does the same thing, channels load but it stops working. So I put the boxes back into their original rooms and call for help. Before doing so, I decided to go to the family room downstairs and watch TV in HD and a on-demand movie, to confirm that Xi3 box is working fine. Sure enough, every few minutes, picture/audio studder/pixel and when watching On-Demand movies, it stops, like it's buffering and then continues.
I call Comcast, waited for a tech support rep for 20minutes, ran through troubleshooting steps and their system indicated they need to dispatch a tech for further troubleshooting. Their next available appointment wasn't until Wednesday and they had very limited hours. So I had to take a half day from work and we couldn't enjoy TV in the family room or master bedroom for 5 days. Meanwhile, luckily the internet isn't having any issues and new modem appears to be working flawlessly. As well as the main DVR.
Wednesday finally arrives and my wife is thrilled about getting X1 to work properly throughout the house, as she fell in love with it. My window is from 3PM-5PM, tech arrives around 3:30PM. Checks the line outside, says an old filter was installed, so he replaced it regardless. We go to the family room, since it's closest and worked our way up to master bedroom. He checks the Xi3 in the family room, which is split with the Cable modem. Signal is "excellent". He checks the crimp for the wall outlet, test there show excellent as well. He confirms the problem I'm describing. He checks the signal for the main DVR, said "excellent" as well. We go to the one that is not working at all, master bedroom. Immediately the problem is seen, since it never worked. He checks the outlet and cable going to the box, says it's "excellent" as well. He asks to get access to the main cable, I grab my ladder for him to pop into the attic (the cables are right at the entrance of the attic). He goes up there, pulls down the cables, signal shows "excellent" and he decides to redo all of the ends, saying the last Comcast guy did an "ok job". He redid the ends, rebooted the devices, same thing. He phones another tech to seek suggestions, tech on phone suggests swapping the main DVR. He goes to his truck, swaps it out and after 20-30min of him going through the activation/sync (it had some issues transferring the new box to my account), it boots up and starts displaying video. He tells me to watch the TV downstairs and see if there's any issues and he'll check the box in the master bedroom. The family room box appears to be working better, but there's some slight delay, and blurry on fast action. The menu is a bit faster, but sometimes took a few seconds to catch up. After observing for 10minutes, I go upstairs to the living room where the main DVR is and the tech says "well, it's still having issues. Only thing I can think of is there's an issue with the lines. You'll need an electrician". He has me sign his phone and says he's done upstairs and leaves.
At this point we're really disappointed we couldn't get X1 to work and had to go through all that hassle for nothing. We have a dog and a 11month old baby, so doing anything outside of our norm on a work week, is challenging. As most parents know. Luckily I didn't return our old equipment yet, so I decide to swap everything back and just call to return X1. I didn't want to be like others, who I've seen have numerous visits and spent money on trying to make the X1. My wife then notifies me that the tech left my ladder in the middle of the hallway, with the cables hanging out and attic open. Then he forgot to put back the wallet outlet in the babies playroom, left the two screws on the carpet. This got me pretty upset, that was not professional. The initial Comcast tech cleaned up, helped me fold/put away the ladder and closed up the attic and put the cables back neatly. I go upstairs and the Xi3 seems worse, by worse, I mean it doesn't even go to trying to load the channel. Before it would at least load a channel and freeze. Now it would just stay on "Trying to connect to X1 system" or something along those lines.
Frustrated, I call Comcast, 30min wait to get someone on the phone. I tell the CSR, tech couldn't fix the issue, I don't want to continue troubleshooting and want to activate our old working equipment. And also complained about the tech. She apologizes, etc, starts the swap process on their system, 10-15min pass by on hold. Meanwhile I'm installing the old boxes, she tells me "I'm sorry, we cannot activate your old boxes, until you return the new ones to us. Then you'll have to call back." I was kind of shocked, and confused, as she initially said it is possible and even heard in the background someone else assisting her in doing it. I asked for a supervisor and was told there was a wait. So I continued installing the old boxes and they're all working. I notified the CSR and she was in shock they were working, when they shouldn't be. After an hour on the phone, finally get a supervisor, explain the situation, he confirms they CAN do the swap, so I can get my old boxes working again. Asks if I'm 100% sure I don't want to give another tech a shot to come out and troubleshoot the X1 system. Told him, at this point, I don't want to continue waiting for an appointment, taking time off work and from my family, etc. He credits my account for the two boxes not working 5 days and confirms the swap is complete.
Now I'm hoping when I drop off the boxes at the Comcast Store, there's no issues.
Looking back, if the tech thought it was a cabling issue for the master bedroom, the splitter from the attic was less than 10ft from where the box was and already hanging in the hallway. He could of ran a temporary cable to confirm the problem. I wish we had more time to continue troubleshooting, but don't feel like going through the hassle of multiple visits and finger pointing. Maybe I'll give it another shot in a couple years when/if it becomes more stable.
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