Mediacom Poor customer service/tech support Godley, Illinois

This isn't a complaint about a rip-off, but it's about constantly poor service and a lack of getting anything done.

First a little background.....  I live in one state and travel to another for 2-3 weeks at a time for work and am home for 1-2 weeks.  During the time I'm gone, I have my system at home constantly hooking up to 3 networks (customer's company, my company, and the construction company doing the main work that I'm supporting)  The system staggers the hookups for all 3 companies, downloads updates and reports and stores them on my system once an hour.  Then I hook in on a vpn and download them to my laptop when I have time.  Makes it easier to store them on my system, and just grab what is needed for the task at hand on my laptop.  Talked it over with Mediacom about it before I signed on for service, and they had no problem with it since the connections weren't constant and I signed on for service last year.

Ok, now the problem......  My service is interrupted 9+ times a day.  I've had it happen at home, so I saw what the problem was.   All the lights on the modem would stay on constantly, but signal would be lost.  Problem was easy to diagnose since I constantly on networks and the internet and I've had the problems enough times.  Besides, on this matter I can cheat also, since my neighbor installs cable and internet for another company.  We looked it over, and the problem is either the modem itself or the outside box.  The inside cable was checked, and no problems with it, even ran a cable from his house to my outside box and tied into my outside connection that leads inside and checked for leakage.  There were no problems with the inside line.  We hooked up the modem directly to the line that comes down from the pole to a laptop.  I was losing 1/4-1/2 of my packets.  Called mediacom support and talked to tier 2 support.  The person was nice and polite, had no problems running the test, and confirmed what we had found out.  Here is where the trouble began.......

During the conversation with the tech, I lost cell phone connection and had to call back.  That is my fault, but when I finally got beck to tier 2, the person I talked to was completely opposite of the first person I talked to...  After talking to him for 5 or 6 mins dealing with his attitude, his telling me that there was no way I knew how to do a self check, etc; I let my fustration show (not too much, just a edge on my voice that my neighbor gave me a funny look about), and asked the tech if there was any notes on my account from the first tech.  There was, and a reccomendation that a service tech to visit the house and check the outside box and the modem. 

After listening  to him for a few minutes on things not related to the problem, I finaly got him to answer on when a tech could be sent out to check.  I found out then, that the techs only visit my area on monday and tuesday.  Since I was going to be gone, I asked for an appointment to have the ouside box checked.  I was informed that that wasn't possible; that the tech had to check the inside wires and the modem first.  I told him, and it was noted that the wires inside had been checked.  I was told that the policy was for the tech to have access to the inside of the house or no check would be done. 

Ok, I can live with that part since I have to follow very stringent policies, so I asked him if modems can be returned to the nearest office and exchanged.  He said yes and hung up on me!!!!!!!!!!!!  I was a little upset, and my neighbor was laughing his a*s off since I had put the phone on speaker.  Since I had to go to town anyway, I packed up the modem and drove a little out of my way to the nearest office (45 minutes)  When I got there, I talked to the lady at the counter and she referred me to the office manager, another nice lady.  There I was informed that I could not turn the modem in, that a tech had to exchange it on a service call!!!!  I was a little more then upset at that time.  I explained my problem to her, the attitude of the second tech I had talked to, the fact that the only possibility for me to be home for a service call was 2-3 weeks in the future, and that I needed the internet to be up and reliable.....   She informed me that there was nothing that she could do, since company policies were explicit.

Now we can fast forward to now.  That problem was from almost 8 months ago, and it isn't resolved yet.  I've had appointments for 11 service calls; 3 were definitely no-shows, 2 were possible no-shows (I had left my property for less then 5 mins each time and they may of shown up during when I was gone.)  4 were canceled due to weather (an icestorm, a blizzard, and 2 windstorms that knocked out internet/cable for the entire area), 1 I tried to reschedule to an afternoon appointment since my train was running late but was rebuffed, and 1 I canceled due to a family emergency.

At the moment, I have no other choices for internet in my area.  But when I do, I'm going to switch.  I have no choice.  I can have any other company come to my house and do outside checks (phone, gas, electric) without me being there.  But the internet, I need to be reliable as much as them.  And it isn't.  Currently, I have my modem hooked up to a telephone device for lights that allows me to phone in (when I'm not home) and turn the power to the modem off, and call back a minute later to turn the power back on.  That isn't the way it's supposed to be.  I've run the gauntlet from real nice people at their service number (a majority) to real asses ( I told 1 or 2 that they may want to change their attitude when I got tired of it).  I've talked to a few of their managers (but they say their hands are tied) who were sympathetic.  But right now, I'm just tired of it.  As soon as I am able (ATT announced DSL for the area in the next year), I'll be switching.  I depend on the internet as a major part of my job to keep me in touch with what is happening, and with the service I've been getting, it's too much trouble.