Ack.  I seem to have been infected by a Star Wars meme when naming those last two entries.  It probably happened when I was reading the comments on Slashdot to the telemarketer story (someone had “<ackbar>It’s a trap.</ackbar>” in their comment).

Anyway, I am somewhat surprised so far with Charter’s support.  I expected it to be a crapfest, but they’ve been pleasant and helpful.  They responded to my problem report within a couple of hours.  They remotely checked the modem and found that it was reporting a low uptime, so they will send a technician out this evening to look at it.  It’s possible that the modem is starting to go bad.  It’s been almost continuously powered on since November, 2000.  I also reported a billing problem to them (they started billing me for modem rental, even though I own the modem) and they responded quickly that they’d fix it and research back to credit me for any previous months that were billed.

This makes for an interesting contrast to the trouble one of my coworkers initially had with Comcast.  He isn’t capable of using DSL (too far from the branch office), so cable is the only viable alternative (satellite internet costs a bundle to install and fixed-wireless has high monthly charges).  He tried to use their online form to order their service, but all he got back was an email (two days later) that said they could not process the order “at this time”.  No explanation was given.  He tried calling the 800 number given in the email.  After navigating the VRU menus, he was told that his call could not be completed at this time.  He finally managed to find their local number and call them directly.  The local person was much more helpful and got everything taken care of pretty quickly.  I guess they’re more motivated to help since they’re in a local office where you can go gripe at them in person.