As of Tuesday, I now have Sonic as my ISP and VOIP provider.
The Sonic technician, Chuck, arrived 30 min into the 4 hour
window I was given for my appointment, which was f-ing stellar, and then I got
to experience why he arrived so early.
Chuck knew his stuff.
He was a telecom technician for many years, and his
experience showed. He assessed where the jacks were, figured out where the
existing lines traced, and gave me a summary of what my options were and what
he recommended in 10 minutes. I made my
choice, and he set up a new jack in the computer room where the modem was going
to be placed, extended a line to the kitchen, had the phone line up and
registering on both jacks in 20 min, and the internet up in another 10. The experience of having a tech that knew his
stuff AND properly tested everything was working PROPERLY before he left was
refreshing.
About 40 minutes into the visit from Sonic, the Direct TV
tech arrive, and he too was on the ball.
Unlike the Xfinity/Comcast techs that arrived somewhat grumpy and
zombified, the Direct TV tech was all energy and smiles. Like Chuck, the Direct
TV tech assessed out house, explained what he was going to do, got permission
to go ahead, then went to it. He
replaced our old Direct TV dish with a new one, hooked up the Genie DVR in the
living room, and the Genie satellite unit in the bedroom, tested both, gave me
a quick but thorough intro to both, and gave me a very easy and descriptive
reference manual.
By 10:00 am, both techs were gone and I was completely up
and running with both my new internet, new phone, and new TV source.
That was the success part… here was the no so much success
part:
I grabbed the decoder card from my wife’s TiVo, the
Xfinity/Comcast DVR w/ remote, the Xfinity/Comcast internet/phone modem, and
their cords and AC adapters, and took them to Xfinity/Comcast on the way to
work to drop them off and get them removed from our accounts. I waited in line for a few minutes in their
office, where they then took my name and had me take a seat in the waiting area…
with me having an armful of equipment.
15 minutes later, I was called up. The attendant was extremely
polite, but unfortunately could not take the equipment at this time, because my
phone number from Xfinity/Comcast had not yet ported over to my Sonic phone
yet, but was in transition to do so. The system was locked in a way that no
changes could be made to the account until the port-over was complete… which
won’t happen till late next week.
NOTE!: When switching from Xfinity/Comcast, make sure your
turn in unused equipment BEFORE you put in a request to port your phone number
to your new service, OR just do not bother porting your old number.
Now for the record, I wouldn’t have gone with Direct TV, or
any other satellite or cable service for that matter, if I could have afforded
to purchase my over the air antennae equipment now. Even though an over the air antennae cost
super less in the long run, I am completely broke at this time, and could not
afford to spend more than the $125.00 this month.
Anyway, for the next year, everything is discounted and much
less expensive. Just got my first direct TV bill of $62.00, and my sonic bill
is $60, so we are looking at $122 a month for TV, Internet, and Phone. That is $55.00 less I am paying than
Xfinity/Comcast. Unfortunately, I am
going to incur some costs still from Xfinity/Comcast next month due to not
being able to cancel my account till the phone number ports.
No comments:
Post a Comment