Hey! I provide good service to all my customers. I make sure everything is top quality and a good price!

"First one's free" ?

Don't knock the guy on the corner... You never know when you'll need him. :)

I've had experience with both Comcast and Verizon customer service and actually I've been pleasently suprised with both. With Verizon I was installing DSL at my friends house and I called because we lacked some login/password information that was supposed to be provided. On hold for less than 5mins (at peak time no less) and when we got hold of someone, after proving our identity, she gave us all the information we needed.

With Comcast Cable I've had great experiences. With the install of cable at my house they gave us a date of a week before christmas and actually showed up on time and then since I basicly did the install didn't charge us anything and even gave us some free equipment. When I had a problem with the line (signal degredation) they said no one could be out before Monday (it was a Tuesday) and then had someone out on Thursday. That was nice. Put in a new filter (or amplifier?) and fixed it.

Another time I was doing an install at a friends house, the cable was improperly setup on Comcasts end and I called. The tech support person asked if I had a router (which I did) and I said yes, and he goes well in the hypothetical situation of a person having a router we're technically not allowed to do service...but since you DONT have that. I was like, um, yea...

I guess it depends upon your area. Verizon and Comcast are both new in mine and we have branch offices very close by.

Be sure to complain to your city's department that issued the franchise license to AT&T/Comcast. It can't hurt.

You might also track down the name/number for the general manager of your local system. I did that with mine (Adelphia). I received a very nice letter from the GM with his direct number and email address to contact any time.

The service in most of these companies seems to be dramatically different depending on which divisions you're dealing with and which area of the country. This isn't limited to the telecom industry, for the (thankfully) brief time I spent in CT I had endless trouble with a particular shipping company that's always provided me with excellent service elsewhere. I even got a service rep from the company to admit that there had been odd behavior from the branch in CT before.

I've got an AT&T/Comcast cable modem in Los Angeles, but I'm one of the lucky ones that started out on the infrastructure that MediaOne built before they were aquired by AT&T. I've had no problems with my cable modem, but the digital cable service was so bad that I had them switch me to analog cable and the main reason I haven't switched to a dish is that my landlord has been dragging his feet on letting me get one installed.

Sounds like the standard horrible Technical Support run-arounds the most people have come to experience.

Everything from "power cycle your modem" to "is it plugged in". I have heard them all.

I love it.

I have pretty much learned exactly what Earthlink Technical Support people will ask and I know exactly how to react to them.

The software I use....they don't support it. So I fake my way through the support scripts that they have.