Long outages for Comcast cable TV, Internet customers

Comcast customers in Santa Rosa are experiencing longer than expected outages while the cable company upgrades its network.

Some customers have reported being without Internet and cable TV service for a week or more. Others have experienced intermittent outages lasting a day or two.

"My service was cut off completely, without any notice whatsoever," said Trevor Moss, a natural resources consultant who lives in Fountaingrove. "I run part of my business out of my house, and to be just cut off like that is a real problem."

Moss said he has lost Internet service three times in the last month. The first time he was disconnected for two days, and the following two times he was disconnected for a day or less, he said.

"In this day and age you have to be connected to the Internet," Moss said. "After this experience I'm pretty reluctant to change from a normal phone to Comcast's digital one."

When Comcast announced it was beginning to connect neighborhoods to its upgraded network back in December, a company spokesman told The Press Democrat that service interruptions would be "brief."

Comcast is in the process of replacing Santa Rosa's antiquated network, one of its oldest in the country, to a next-generation setup that brings fiber optic lines closer to homes.

People should only be losing service between the hours of 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. while technicians upgrade equipment, said Andrew Johnson, Comcast's vice president of communications. The outages might span several days, but should not be outside those hours, he said.

"We're trying to keep the number of hours the service is down to as small an amount as we can," Johnson said.

The upgrade will bring new services to Santa Rosa customers, who have long been denied features available elsewhere in Sonoma County. Comcast will be able to offer faster Internet, digital phone services and more TV channels, including high-definition ones.

The cable company plans to have the upgrade completed by the end of this year.

Customers are also complaining they received no warning from Comcast before work began in their neighborhoods and the outages occurred.

Calls to customer service didn't prove much help, according to several customers.

"Customer service reps are always very kind to us, but never seem to know what is going on and often give us bad information. We've called several times over the past week to get assistance and schedule a service appointment with no success," Fountaingrove resident Liz Hanley complained.

Her TV service had been out for 10 days, she said. Comcast restored service on Thursday night after The Press Democrat alerted the company about the outage.

"I'm glad we don't have Internet and everything else with them. That would not be good," she said.

She is now looking to switch her TV service to AT&T or a satellite provider.

Johnson said both Hanley's and Moss's outages were caused by a contractor working on the project to upgrade its network. Both involved problems with the "drop," or cable that goes from the curb to the house. In one case, the cable was connected incorrectly; in the other, a cable was mislabeled.

"Both these were impacted by the same contractor and we are following up with that contractor to encourage him to be better prepared," Johnson said.

Comcast is notifying customers with door hangers when work occurs in their neighborhood, Johnson said. But many customers, such as Moss, say they were never notified.

Moss is left wondering when his service will be interrupted again.

"I wouldn't be at all surprised if I suffer one or more outages again," he said.

You can reach Staff Writer Nathan Halverson at 521-5494 or nathan.halverson

@pressdemocrat.com.